Croydon – Le Mans

On June 14, 1952 at 09:49 AM, Croydon – Le Mans experienced a crash involving Airspeed AS.65 Consul, operated by Morton Air Services, with the event recorded near Brighton East Sussex.

The flight was categorized as charter/taxi (non scheduled revenue flight) and the reported phase was flight at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

8 people were known to be on board, 6 fatalities were recorded, 2 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 75.0%.

Crew on board: 1, crew fatalities: 1, passengers on board: 7, passenger fatalities: 5, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. The aircraft was performing a charter flight from Croydon to Le Mans with seven passengers and the pilot. The flight was without incident until shortly after crossing the English coast in the vicinity of Brighton at about 0855. The starboard engine gave one or two bangs which the pilot thought might be due to carburetor icing. The engine quickly recovered, however, and the flight proceeded. At about 0915 the starboard engine again began to cough. This time it did not recover. The aircraft was then twenty-two nautical miles from the nearest aerodrome, namely Le Havre on the French coast while the nearest English aerodrome was Shoreham, fifty-seven nautical miles in the opposite direction. The pilot elected to turn back to the English coast and make a 180 degrees turn to port. The aircraft continuously lost height and finally ditched twelve miles south of Brighton at 0949LT. There were only two passenger survivors who were picked up two hours later.

Aircraft reference details include registration G-AHFT, MSN 2593, year of manufacture 1946.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 50.7887°, 0.3063°.