Air Disaster
On Saturday 15 May 1943, during a cricket match between the school and an army team, two Hurricane fighter planes appeared over the playing fields at around 3 p.m. They proceeded to circle the fields, performing manoeuvres as they did so, an eye-witness describing them "diving over the field and banking steeply". In what would be the final pass, at around 3.20 p.m., both planes flew across the cricket ground at an extremely low altitude, and then climbed rapidly to clear the tall fir trees bordering the field. The second plane appeared to clip the trees with its tail and nose-dived straight into the ground, crashing and bouncing, the burning debris finally coming to rest amongst the schoolboys spectating the cricket match from an embankment. The pilot and nine people on the ground were killed, with 15 others injured, 10 of them seriously.
Read more about this topic: Downside School
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