Hornet Moth Crash, 1943.

On the 22nd December 1943, a crash at Kenley resulted in an RAF dH.87b Hornet Moth being written off, but happily there were no fatalities.

The aircraft in question was one of the original Hornet Moth prototypes and was first registered in the British experimental ‘Class B’ section as E-1, which was changed to a standard registration, G-ADIR, on 11th June 1935. The owner was the de Havilland Aircraft Co., Hatfield, Herts. The aircraft remained at Hatfield when it was sold to Shell-Mex & BP Ltd., on the 24th February, 1939. By the time it was impressed into RAF service on February 4, 1940, as W9387, it had been converted to a D.H.87B – the original wings were replaced with a more rectangular shaped design.

I think this aircraft was probably a squadron ‘hack’. In any case, it makes a change to write about a crash where nobody was killed!