DH.95 crash in Yorkshire

The DH.95 crash in Yorkshire (The Crash of De Havilland Flamingo R2764) was an aviation accident in England in 1942. It is considered the deadliest in terms of the number of Russians killed on English soil.

On 30 April 1942, a serious air crash occurred in the vicinity of the village of Great Ouseburn — De Havilland Flamingo R2764 of No. 24 Squadron of the Royal Air Force crashed. The aircraft was carrying two officials of the British Air Ministry and four citizens of the USSR. That morning the aircraft had flown from Hendon airfield near London to Tealing near Dundee. It was returning after a short stop at RAF East Fortune near Edinburgh when it developed engine trouble. In flight the aircraft caught fire and fell into a field near Great Ouseburn. A fire broke out; firefighters quickly arrived at the scene and the fire was extinguished, but none of those involved in the crash survived; it claimed the lives of ten people. Those killed were the well-known Soviet pilot Sergei Asyamov, who was preparing V. M. Molotov's visit to Great Britain, and members of the Soviet military mission in Great Britain — the assistant head of the mission for aviation, Colonel Grigory Petrovich Pugachev, the assistant military attaché, Major Boris Filippovich Shvetsov, the secretary of the mission, military engineer 2nd rank Pyotr Ivanovich Baranov,

liaison officers of the British Air Ministry F. W. Wilton (Wilton Francis William) and Lieutenant Colonel Edwards (Edwards Kenneth Wykeham), and crew members — senior pilot J. Ramsay (J. Ramsay), Sergeant James Smith (James B Smith), Sergeant Alan Stripp (Alan J Stripp) and technician James Lewis (James Lewis).

According to the commander of Soviet Long-Range Aviation (1942–1944) A. E. Golovanov, Stalin, on learning of the crash, said: "Some allies we have!"

On 20 June 1942 Asyamov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered a thorough investigation of the crash; the results of the investigation were classified. There was a theory that the crash was the result of sabotage carried out by pro-German forces with the aim of disrupting Soviet–British negotiations. According to another theory, the cause of the accident was a technical fault (an internal engine defect, its disintegration and the subsequent explosion of fuel vapours, which led to the wing breaking off). The DH.95 was one of the most reliable aircraft; aircraft of this model were operated in the period from 1939 to 1950, and faults of this kind did not occur either before the crash or after it. The chief pilot was an experienced aviator who had spent a total of 3755 hours in the air and had flown various types of aircraft.

In 2012 a memorial to the Soviet airmen was opened in Great Ouseburn.