Chipmunk T.10 WP774 at Brough airfield.
On Saturday, 30th April 1960 this Hull University Air Squadron aircraft took off from Brough airfield with an instructor and a pupil in the cockpit. The flight was undertaken to give the pupil experience of flying the aircraft with a simulated engine failure and making a forced landing. Soon after taking off the instructor made a radio transmission stating that he was going to begin the exercise. The engine would have been throttled back and control given to the pupil. Flying at around 200 feet, the aircraft was seen to glide over Brough airfield and make a starboard turn. The turn tightened and became a spin, and with control lost, the aircraft struck the old recreation club building on the Blackburn Aviation side of the airfield site. Unfortunately both the instructor and the pupil were killed. It was thought that that pupil had operated the flying controls incorrectly and that the instructor had not retaken control in time to bring the aircraft back under control.
Pilot (Instructor) - S/Ldr Peter Norman Boyle RAF (141683), aged 27. Buried Haylie Brae Cemetery, Largs, North Ayrshire.
Pilot (Pupil) - Cadet Pilot Neil Fred Cleverdon RAF (4230172), aged 21. Buried Hull Northern Cemetery, Yorkshire (E.23).
Peter Boyle had spent time as a PoW during the Second World War. On 20th December 1943 he was the second pilot of Lancaster DV234 which failed to return from an operational flight to bomb Frankfurt when the aircraft was shot down by flak and a night fighter. Four of the crew were killed while four others including him survived.
Neil Cleverdon was a second year physics student at Hull University. He was from Dursley, Gloucestershire but his mother was originally from Hull. He was engaged to be married at the time of his death.