Unidentifed Blackburn Kangaroo at Bootham Stray, York.
On Saturday, 14th June 1924 the pilot of this large aeroplane flying a cross country training flight as part of pilot refresher training that was being undertaken at Brough aerodrome with the North Sea Aerial and General Transport Ltd. The flight appears to have taken the aeroplane south from Brough, eventually to use Spittlegate aerodrome (near Grantham) as a turning point before returning to land at Brough. The pilot flew the initial parts of the flight without incident but when it came to flying from Spittlegate north toward Brough the compass appears to have failed. The pilot found himself over York. He attempted a forced landing on Bootham Stray, just north of the city and while the aeroplane touched down without incident it over-ran and struck a tree on the edge of a pond. The collision knocked down the tree and the aeroplane was damaged, it came to rest with the wheels in the pond. The pilot was slightly injured. The fact that newspaper reports states that a passing motorist took the pilot into York suggests it crashed near one of the few roads across Bootham Stray and one large pond, feature is probably the crash location, is just north of the railway crossing of the York to Scarborough line and also very close to where I presume a 1666 Heavy Conversion Unit Halifax crashed during 1944.
Pilot - P/O George Summers Fenwick RAFO.
George Fenwick was born in Sigglesthorne, Yorkshire on 26th December 1898. As a young man he served as a valet for Robertson Gladstone, brother of William Gladstone (British Prime Minister), at Broad Green, Liverpool. Fenwick served with the RFC and then RAF during the latter stages of the First World War, undertaking pilot training at Marske during October 1918. He appears to have left the RAF in the early 1920s but later rejoined. In respect of the mishap on 14th June 1924, he was with the North Sea Aerial and General Transport Ltd from 21st May 1924 to 16th June 1924. This company operated from Brough and undertook refresher training for the RAF for pilots who had previously done military flying but then left the service at the end of WW1. The date he left the course at the company was just two days after the mishap at York and must be related. He resumed pilot training later in 1924 but eventually relinquished his commission in the RAFO on account of ill health on 18th January 1927.
In trying to identify which Blackburn Kangaroo this one was, the North Sea Aerial and General Transport Ltd received the following RT.1 Kangaroo's, G-EAIT, G-EAIU, G-EAKQ, G-EAMJ but sold G-EAKQ to the Preuvian Army in July 1921. It was probably one of the other three.