1971 RAF Hercules crash

On 9 November 1971, a Royal Air Force Lockheed Hercules C.1 crashed into the sea off the coast of Livorno by Meloria shoal, Italy, killing all 46 passengers and 6 crew. At the time it was described by Italian officials as the worst military air disaster in Italy in peacetime.

Crash

The Hercules serial number XV216, from RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, was due to carry out an early morning parachute drop at Cagliari, Sardinia, as part of a large-scale joint training exercise called Coldstream. Ten aircraft were to be involved; nine Hercules and one Hawker Siddeley Andover. Their order of takeoff was marked by a serial number, chalked onto the fuselage of each aircraft. The Hercules known as Chalk 4 was the fourth of the 10 aircraft due to depart at fifteen-minute intervals from San Giusto military airport in Pisa, Italy. The aircraft crashed near the Meloria rocks, four miles west of Livorno. At Pisa, the stream take-off was cancelled, another four aircraft had followed XV216 into the air but the last two were prevented from departing.

All 52 on board were killed, they included five British aircrew from 24 Squadron, a British parachute jumping instructor from No. 1 Parachute Training School at RAF Abingdon and 46 Italian paratroopers from the Folgore Parachute Brigade.