The following article titled “The story behind a famous photograph of an ejection from a Lightning” appeared in Issue 5 – English Electric Lightning of Aviation Classic.
The main picture in this was taken by Jim Meads on Sep. 13, 1962. It was published in newspapers all around the world at the time and, as it was so widely seen, it naturally caught the attention of manufacturer Martin-Baker.
At the time Jim lived next door to de Havilland test pilot Bob Sowray in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and on this day both of their wives had gone clothes shopping in London. Bob had mentioned that he was due to fly a Lightning that day, and later Jim’s children asked if they could go to watch the flight. Although Jim was a photographer, he wouldn’t usually take his camera on an outing like this. However, on this occasion he decided he would get a picture of his neighbour flying. The camera he took had just two exposures on it.
The spectators found a good vantage point close to the threshold of de Havilland’s Hatfield airfield, and waited for the Lightning to return. As XG332 came in on final approach, at around 200ft high its nose pitched up and the pilot ejected. The Lightning had become uncontrollable after an engine fire had weakened a tailplane actuator.
Jim took one photo soon after the ejection, and as can be seen caught the pilot inverted with his parachute still unopened and the Lightning plummeting earthwards close to him. The tractor driver heard the bang of the ejection seat and is seen after quickly turning around to look at what was going on, no doubt very relieved he wasn’t working further over in the field. Jim’s one remaining picture recorded the subsequent plume of thick black smoke after the jet had crashed. (The tractor in the photograph was a Fordson Super Major.)
Fortunately the pilot survived after coming down in a greenhouse full of tomatoes. He suffered multiple breaks of his limbs and cuts from the shower of glass that rained down on him after going through the roof of the greenhouse. However, it hadn’t been Bob Sowray at the controls; he had decided to let fellow test pilot George Aird carry out the flight.
XG332 was one of 20 pre-production Lightnings and first flew on May 29, 1959. It was used throughout its flying life by BAC* and de Havilland for Firestreak and Red Top trials, and its crash occurred while it was on latter programme.
*British Aircraft Corporation
The aircraft in the photograph was XG332. It was built in 1959, one of 20 pre-production Lightnings. Photograph taken in 1960 at Farnborough.
The wreckage of the Lightning can be seen just short of runway 06 and just beyond the greenhouses in which George landed.
George landed in a greenhouse sustaining several fractures. The hole where George and the ejection seat went through the glass roof can be seen in the above picture in the near end of the roof of the second greenhouse from the left. They landed in adjoining rows of tomatoes.
