[Harry Ree]

There were many incidents of groundcrew being lost from "air test" failures.Many aircraft were lost from such air test flights undertaken by a squadron after first line servicing or after damage repairs carried out by an airfield based contractor from the various RAF repair categories. These air tests were necessary to determine if the aircraft was to be declared serviceable for operations.Many were carried out during the day prior to being listed in the overall plans for the next operations.Information which would be made available to the planners to be included in the planned air operations which could be less than 12 hours away or within the hour as the case may be.

Usually the crew manning the aircraft would be the minimum for air duties and groundcrew some of senior NCO rank may be included to assess aircraft or equipment performance.For instance this Hampden was crewed by three, two being the minmum, pilot and navigator, for a prolonged cross country flight or a flight over safe home waters.LAC Richardson may have been undertaking an assessing role or taken the opportunity for a ride in an Hampden.

Its test flight was related to "acceptance" and it failed on engine failure which suggests that the lost may have possibly been due to the failure of a newly changed engine.Whatever it was, there must have been indication of the problem raised by the pilot to base for these facts to be known.No doubt the full facts should be recorded in the Squadron ORB 540.