Amarda Road - Amarda Road

On July 26, 1945 at 09:45 AM, Amarda Road - Amarda Road experienced a crash involving Consolidated B-24 Liberator, operated by Royal Air Force - RAF, with the event recorded near Amarda Road AFB Odisha (Orissa).

The flight was categorized as training and the reported phase was flight at a plain, valley crash site.

6 people were known to be on board, 6 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 6, crew fatalities: 6, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. At 0915LT, six Liberators of AFTU took off from Amarda Rd Airfield to carry out a navigational exercise in formation. At approximately 0945LT, the formation, which had been encountering medium to bad weather, approached a heavy bank of cloud. The leader, S/Ldr Heynert, commenced to lose height in an attempt to fly underneath this, but reached the cloud before he was quite low enough and the formation entered the cloud. Number 6 by this time was some little way behind the formation. On entering the cloud visibility was reduced to nil and numbers 2 and 5 in the formation altered course starboard and number 4 altered course port. On coming out of the cloud aircraft number 1 (EW225) and aircraft number 3 (EW247) captained by PO Herbert, were seen to be in close proximity, and number 3 was then seen to pull up and collide with number 1. The tail unit of number 1 was torn off and the aircraft crashed out of control, and one wing (which one not established) of number 3 was torn off, causing the aircraft to crash. Crew: F/O Alfred Herbert, pilot, F/O Peter Hubert Ash Smith, navigator and bomb aimer, F/Sgt Cyril William Geeson, flight engineer, W/O William Joseph Smart, wireless operator and air gunner, AC1 George William Paffey, AC2 P. V. Mathai. Source: http://www.rquirk.com/amarda/26July45storyV6eb.pdf

Aircraft reference details include registration EW247.