1958 BOAC Bristol Britannia crash
Bristol Britannia 312 · Pilot error and CFIT
From London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Hurn Airfield (Now Bournemouth International Airport)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 9 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 3
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 3
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Bristol Britannia 312
- Aircraft type
- Bristol Britannia 312
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- G-AOVD
- Operator
- Boac
- Onboard fatalities
- 9
- Route
- From London Heathrow Airport (LHR)To Hurn Airfield (Now Bournemouth International Airport)
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Environmental issues › Task environment
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
G-AOVD was a Bristol Britannia 312 operated by BOAC which crashed near Christchurch, Dorset, in the south of England on Christmas Eve 1958, killing two of the five crew and all seven passengers.
Accident sequence
The aircraft departed from London Heathrow Airport at 10:10 am on a test flight to renew its certificate of airworthiness with 12 persons aboard including five crew. After completing the test, at approximately 11:55 am, the crew requested clearance to descend from 12,000 feet to 3,000 feet for approach to Hurn Airport, possibly as an alternate destination due to poor weather at Heathrow. Approximately 3 minutes later, at 11:58 am, Hurn Airport lost contact with the aircraft as it struck the ground, crossing a road into a ploughed field, bringing down telephone lines and trees and alerting residents in the nearby villages. Upon realising they had lost contact with the aircraft, the controller at Hurn contacted the emergency services giving the last known position before contact was lost. Likewise the residents of Winkton, Sopley, and people living near Bransgore contacted emergency services saying they believed that they had heard the sound of a low flying aircraft and the sound of a crash.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The crash was attributed to a failure on the part of the captain and first officer to correctly establish the altitude of the aircraft before and during the descent. The Britannia aircraft was fitted with a three-handed altimeter which required a higher degree of concentration to read correctly than was desirable. The crew misread the instrument believing that they were at 11,500 feet when they began descending, when in fact they were at only 1,500 feet. As a result, they flew the aircraft into the ground which was obscured by fog at the time. The type of flight in which the aircraft was engaged was also thought to be a contributing factor.
It was concluded that this crash was a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) and that there were no defects with the aircraft or its systems which contributed to the crash. For this the failure to read the instruments correctly rests with the captain. This was not the first crash involving a crew misreading this type of altimeter in this long distance, high altitude aircraft. As a direct result of this and other similar incidents, altimeters would now be required to display a cross-hatch or chequered flag when indicating an altitude below 1500 feet. Furthermore, all fire appliances in Christchurch would now be fitted with radios for improved communication, and when four-wheel drive appliances became available, Christchurch was one of the first rural stations to be allocated one.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1958 BOAC Bristol Britannia crash” (revision 1339304733, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: 1958 BOAC Bristol Britannia crash
- Revision
- 1339304733 · 2026-02-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q16824391
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1958 BOAC Bristol Britannia crash" (page 17733182, revision 1339304733)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator is an airline according to Wikidata
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.