DH.60 Moth G-EBXS in Bramham Park.
This account is drawn from the AIB report in the UK National Archives in AVIA5/18 and is critical of the pilot's actions. On 7th June 1936 the two men who would be flying in this aircraft travelled to Sherburn in Elmet aerodrome to borrow an aircraft that belonged to the York County Aviation Club to which the pilot who would be flying it was a member. At 15.20hrs they took off from Sherburn and flew to Bramham Park where both men knew that there was a gathering of their friends. Once over Bramham Park the pilot began a series of low passes and circuits of the grounds, making spins and other manoeuvres at low level, witnesses state down to tree top height. During these manoeuvres the fuel system and the engine probably could not handle the unusual flying so periods of the engine spluttering and cutting out were heard by people on the ground. The final manoeuvre was down to low level followed by a climbing turn to around 100 feet above the ground, the aircraft then turned sharply, with the engine throttled back or having cut out again, stalled and dived into the ground at 15.45hrs. Remarkably the pilot survived the crash but his passenger was killed. The AIB report laid full blame on the pilot for his actions and found there was no failure or defect with the aircraft.
At the inquest into the death of the passenger The Coroner stated, that because the pilot could not remember the events and there was no evidence of what happened, he was not negligent but the crash may have been down to a slight error of judgment or an accident. Clearly the Coroner found that the pilot was deemed to have played no major part in the crash occurring or the death of his friend. The AIB must have been wrong.
Pilot - 2Lt The Hon. Peter James Mowbray Rous. Injured.
Passenger - 2Lt Michael Ludovic Heathcoat-Amory, aged 22, of Tiverton, Devon. Buried Chevithorne Churchyard, Devon.
Michael Ludovic Heathcoat-Amory was a grandson of Sir John Heathcoat Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Baronet. His father, Ludovic Heathcoat-Amory, died of injuries sustained in France in August 1918 during WW1. His two brothers died in WW2. Michael Ludovic Heathcoat-Amory was serving or attached to the 16/5th The Queen's Royal Lancers, York at the time of his death in June 1936.
Peter Rous was born on 23rd January 1914 at Wangford, Suffolk (probably at Henham Hall, Wangford) and was the son of George Edward John Mowbray Rous, 3rd Earl of Stradbroke and Helena Violet Alice Fraser. He was granted a Royal Aero Club Aviators' Flying Certificate (Cert.No.12853) on 19th June 1935 following training at the Cinque Ports Flying Club, Lympne. He had joined the flying club at Sherburn in Elmet in July 1935 and had just over twenty hours flying to his name at the time of the crash at Bramham Park, twenty hours being the minimum the Sherburn club allowed for members to take up passengers.