Blackburn Mercury on Filey beach.
The photograph above shows the aircraft that crashed onto the beach at Filey and the photograph is probably copyrighted to Hawker Siddeley Aviation Ltd who I believe own the rights to all of the former Blackburn company. It was previously found elsewhere on the internet. I will remove this photograph if requested. A few years ago no other website detailed this accident, given when it happened it was the worst in terms of the greatest ever loss of life in an aircraft crash I felt that someone should try and document the crash for the sake of memory of the two young pioneer aviators. Since creating the initial webpage the world has caught up and now there are lots of webpages detailing the incident.
On 6th December 1911 Robert Blackburn's test pilot, Hubert Oxley, was training a student pilot when the aircraft was to crash on the beach at Filey where the flights were made from. The aircraft went into a fast dive and this caused the wings to break away from the fuselage and it crashed onto the beach. The pilot was thrown from the aircraft and sadly died of a broken neck. The student was rescued from the aircraft but died less than an hour later of the severe injuries he sustained.
Flight Magazine of the time published a letter from Robert Blackburn stating what he thought the cause of the accident was down to. He stated that the pilot was in the habit of "making steep descents at a very acute angle, and had lately done a great many of these from moderate heights with several of the aerodrome members as passengers". Mr Blackburn stated that he thougt the strain on the wings whilst pulling out of such a dive would be great and the machine could not withstand it. "In this case he did a sudden dive over the town of Filey, from a height of 600 feet", the pilot was in a habit of making these dives prior to landing and whilst pulling out of the dive at about 100 feet, and lower than where the hanger was located, he would then climb and land. He made such a dive with Mr Blackburn himself a passenger, who warned him of such dangers in the load on the wings in pulling out of dives from heights. The pilot probably did not think this danger was as great and ignored these warnings, this was probably the first such accident caused by this reason.
The aircraft was powered by a Renault engine and it may have been used by the Filey flying school but was still owned by Blackburn Ltd.
Test Pilot - Mr Hubert Oxley, aged 25, of Heckmondwike, Yorkshire. Buried Heckmondwike Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Student Pilot - Mr Robert John Weiss, aged 29, late of Dewsbury, Yorkshire. Burial location unknown, believed to be in Germany.
Left to right. Robert Weiss, Bentfield Hucks and a 26 year old Mr Robert Blackburn. (Photo was copyrighted to H L Weiss)
Robert Weiss was German-born but was living in England for six years prior to his death, he was a partner in the Anglo-Russian Trading Company.
His sister was married to a Mr Flatow of Dewsbury.
Hubert Oxley was born on 6th September 1886 at Heckmondwyke. He had gained his Royal Aero Club aviators' certificate at Brooklands on 9th May 1911 (Cert.No.78). He was Robert Blackburn's test pilot at the time of his death and was later replaced by Jack Brereton.
