Blackburn Kangaroo G-EAIT near Brough airfield.
On 5th May 1925 the pilot of this aircraft was undertaking a refresher training course for RAF Reserve pilot having not flown for some time. Prior to the accident he had been given some dual training with an instructor on board. After landing, the instructor leaving the aircraft the pilot was cleared to fly solo again so took off from Brough at 15.00hrs. The aircraft climbed normally to between three and four hundred feet when the port engine appeared to people on the ground to be failing. The aircraft descended normally but then dived into the ground around four hundred yards from the edge of Brough aerodrome. Mechanics from the airfield saw the crash and ran to the aircraft, they found the pilot had been thrown from the wreckage and was still alive but to the nature of these injuries he died a few minutes later. Newspaper reports from the time state that he was flying solo. This aircraft was orginally an RNAS aircraft and carried the serial N1728, it was later registered as an RAF aircraft as B9978 before being sold and registered on the UK civilian register on 1st August 1919 to the North Sea Aerial & General Transport Co.Ltd.
Pilot - F/O Hugh Crichton McDonald RAFO, aged 26. Buried Wilton Cemetery, Carluke.
Hugh McDonald was born on 28th September 1898 at Carluke, Lanarkshire. He appears to have served during WW1 and was transferred to the RAF Reserve of Officers in September 1924. He had only just arrived at Brough to undertake pilot training on 4th May 1925 and had been given just sixty five minutes dual control training prior to his death. The flight in which he died was his first made solo for some years.