Page 236 - Demo

232as soon as most of them were there. We would then depart in the various vehicles.The Linton team attended the highest number of RAF accidents of any team in the RAF whilst I was I/C. The first was a Phantom in January 86 that crashed on the Pennines. The crew had had a control problem whilst flying at low level in a formation and had ejected. They were very lucky to have survived although they were injured. The navigator had actually been carried through the fire ball in his parachute. They had been rescued by helicopter before we got there although they had quite a wait lying in the snow before it arrived. It was a very windy day and the snow was thigh deep in places. Some of us were taken to the site by RAF Sea King helicopter whilst the rest made their way by road to an agreed RV point. The wreckage was in a gulley and was quite contained and our job was just to see that the site was safe and could not be disturbed. The Sea King crew said that they would pick us up later and take us to the team RV where we would stay the night. When we were initially flying to the crash site the conditions were extremely turbulent and we had seen the rotor blades passing the nose, sometimes way up high sometimes way down low and this looked very dubious to us. Consequently, to a man we said we would walk out from the site. I think it took a couple of hours to re-join the team after a long slog through the very deep snow. As no one would be able to get to the site that day we left it alone and just guarded the entry track to the area. The second accident was a Bulldog in September 86 that crashed close to RAF Topcliffe. This was only just up the road for us and happened on a lovely day. We settled ourselves around the wreckage and I remember a farmer%u2019s wife coming down in the morning with eggs and milk for the guys. The cause of the accident was that the Instructor had given the student a simulated emergency but unfortunately the student mishandled it and crashed into a tree. They both just had minor injuries.