Meopham air disaster
Walcot Air Line Junkers F.13ge · Mechanical failure of tailplane
From Le Touquet-Côte d'Opale Airport (LTQ) to Croydon Airport, England
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
- 6 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
- Charter & commuter
Junkers F.13ge
- Aircraft type
- Junkers F-13
- 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-AAZK
- Operator
- Walcot Air Line
- Onboard fatalities
- 6
- Route
- From Le Touquet-Côte d'Opale Airport (LTQ)To Croydon Airport, England
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
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
The Meopham Air Disaster occurred on 21 July 1930 when a Junkers F.13ge flying from Le Touquet to Croydon with two crew and four passengers crashed near Meopham, Kent, with the loss of all on board. The report of the inquiry into the accident was made public, the first time in the United Kingdom that an accident report had been published.
Accident
The Junkers F.13ge registered G-AAZK, which was owned by the pilot Lieutenant-Colonel George Henderson, had been lent to the Walcot Air Line to operate a charter flight between Le Touquet in France and Croydon Airport south of London. As the aircraft was above Kent it appeared to have disintegrated and crashed near the village green at Meopham, 5 mi south of Gravesend. Witnesses reported a rumbling noise just before the crash and that the aircraft emerged from a cloud and then broke apart in mid-air. The crash happened at 2:35 pm.
All the occupants except the pilot fell from the aircraft and ended up in an orchard, all of them dead. The fuselage and one wing of the aircraft crashed close to a bungalow, whilst the other wing was found 1 mi away. The tail was found 300 yd from the crash site in a field. The engine fell into the drive of an unoccupied house, just missing a gardener working nearby. One of the villagers rescued the co-pilot, Charles Shearing, from the wreckage and carried him into the bungalow. A retired surgeon who lived nearby was soon on the scene but Shearing died soon afterwards.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Junkers was an all-metal aircraft and had only flown about 100 hours since new. The flight was the third that day. Henderson had earlier flown his wife from Le Touquet to Croydon and had returned for four more passengers before going back again for the remaining four. Early indication showed that the port wing had become detached from the fuselage. The wreckage was removed to Croydon for investigation and four representatives from Junkers arrived from Germany. The investigation was assisted by personnel from the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt, the National Physical Laboratory and the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
Following the initial accident investigation an inquiry by the Accidents Investigation sub-committee of the Aeronautical Research Committee was opened on 3 September 1930. The inquiry was held at Croydon Airport in private and the members inspected the wreckage. The periodical Flight, in its issue dated 5 September 1930, called for the results of the investigation to be made public. It further called for all investigations into aircraft accidents to be made public. It also reported that representatives of some of the victims desired to ask questions at the inquiry. This was refused by Major Cooper, the Air Ministry inspector in charge of the investigation. Major Cooper stated that solicitors for the victims would each receive a copy of the report when it was published.
The final report was issued in January 1931 and the committee concluded the cause to be the "failure of the tailplane under severe buffeting from air eddies produced by the centre section of certain low-wing monoplanes when the aircraft approaches the stalling attitude".
They reported that the aircraft, flying in clouds, may have been thrown into an unusual attitude. This resulted in buffeting of the tailplane, causing the port tailplane to fail, and the aircraft entered a dive. The flutter effect on the starboard tailplane caused it to fail next. The aircraft was moving at high speed and reached a stalling attitude, causing the port wing to break away. The rapid angular acceleration caused the engine supports to break and the engine to fall away. Nine other causes were investigated but dismissed by the committee.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Meopham air disaster” (revision 1328219861, 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: Meopham air disaster
- Article
- Meopham air disaster
- Revision
- 1328219861 · 2025-12-18 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q6817774
- 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 "Meopham air disaster" (page 30767542, revision 1328219861)
- 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
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A small Junkers carrying four passengers on a charter flight for a small operator: a small charter flight. The article: "had been lent to the Walcot Air Line to operate a charter flight between Le Touquet in France and Croydon Airport south of London"
- 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.