On 8th July 1942 this prototype Slingsby Sailplanes troop-carrying glider was being to have been air tested over the general Dishforth area so that it could be evaluated during a series dives. It was towed up into the air by Lockheed Hudson V9228 to 11,000 feet over North Yorkshire with an AFEE glider test pilot and the Slingsby Sailplanes chief test pilot on board. After the towing cable was released the glider was put into a 60 degree dive, at 7,000 feet the speed reached was around 170mph and the glider began to break up. The AFEE test pilot (who was as acting as an observer) was thrown through the side of the glider and broke his arm in the process while the civilian Slingsby's pilot followed him through the hole and both landed by parachute. The glider then crashed in a plantation of small trees though the break up in the air resulted in the wings, tailplane, elevators and rudder being scattered over a wide area, generally over the area to the west of Dishforth airfield near "Harland's Plantation" and "Low Barn" on Hutton Moor.
Slingsby Hengist DG571 was built to Specification X.25/40 and completed under contract SB.13326 by Slingsby Sailplanes Ltd. at Welburn, Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire. It was first test flown in January 1942 and made a number of flights before 8th July 1942, after the mid-air break up on this date the damage assessment was deemed Cat.E2/FA and the glider was written off.
Slingsby Sailplanes Ltd test pilot - Mr John Charles Stuart Wortley Neilan. Uninjured.
Passenger/observer - Sgt Romuald Szukiewicz AFEE. Broken arm.
John Neilan was born in January 1911 in Easington or Seaham, Durham. He was awarded a Royal Aero Club aviator's certificate in 1934 and then became a reasonably well known and widely travelled glider pilot. In 1935 he held the British gliding duration record for a flight lasting some thirteen hours around the Sutton Bank area. In 1937 he completed at the civilan gliding/sailplane championships at Wasserkuppe, Germany. He appears to have been working as a test pilot for Slingsby Sailplanes from the late 1930s. Post War he worked for Hawker Siddeley, he was awarded a Queen's Commendation in 1962 while Senior Test Pilot at BEA LAP (Heathrow) and later was Chief Test Pilot for the Fairey Britten-Norton company in the 1970s.
Romuald Szukiewicz was born on 15th February 1910 at Nowosybirsk (now in Russia). By 1935 he was learning to fly gliders at a gliding school in Poland but may then have moved to the UK with the increasing popularity of the sailplane movement. In 1937 he also completed at the civilan gliding/sailplane championships at Wasserkuppe, Germany. I have not located any information to state what he was doing at the start of the war or whether he had originally been a pilot in the RAF before transferring to the AFEE. He had baled out of Hotspur BT500 over Densford, Northamptonshire on 2nd June 1942 while on a test flight with the AFEE. After the war he settled in the UK, initially working for De Havilland at Christchurch where he worked on the design of the Vampire, the Venom and Sea Vixon aircraft. In the 1960s he held the position of chief aerodynamicist for Hawker Siddeley. He died in Laxton, Northamptonshire in June 1994.