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Major IncidentsMajor Incidents: “The nose of the aircraft was still intact and had buried itself into soft earth. I clambered inside calling out...but it was 'dead' silent and I saw the bodies of the flight crew still strapped in their seats. The main fuselage aft of the flight deck was completely broken up and there were naked body parts, shoes, clothing all over the place, some body parts were impaled on trees. A sight I will never forget.” 1959 1969 5th January; a Boeing 727 airliner owned by Ariana Afghan Airlines crashed at Fernhill, Horley, on approach to Gatwick Airport. As it descended it hit a chimney pot of a house, crashed through trees and slid 200 yards before completely demolishing a house and catching fire. Forty-eight people on the plane were killed together with a couple living in the house. By a miracle the couple’s baby daughter survived. DS Tappern, PC Simmons, PC Buss, PC Holland and PC Anglim received the Queen’s Commendation for Brave Conduct and ‘service exceeding the bounds of duty’ at the scene of the disaster. Click on aircraft photo to read full Board of Trade report Click on the photo for more on the Fernhurst Crash PCs Anglim and Holland each found a child, but they died whilst the constables attended them. The officers in this search were frequently working among the flames and while explosions were occurring and even knocking the officers off their feet. It was during the initial search that PC Simmonds found a baby Beverley Jones buried in the rubble. 1969 "On the morning of 21st September 1940 at about 08.30 hours the Vickers Aircraft Factory at Weybridge was attacked by an enemy aircraft. Three bombs were dropped, two of which exploded, doing slight damage. The other, a 500-1b bomb, penetrated the factory roof, passed through a wall at the end and came to rest on the concrete driveway outside the erecting shed, having failed to explode. As the explosion of the bomb at the position where it rested would have caused considerable damage, its immediate removal was a matter of national importance. "Lieutenant J. M. S. Patton, Royal Canadian Engineers, undertook to remove the bomb to a place of comparative safety and Section Leader Tilyard-Burrows together with Volunteers W. J. Avery, E. A. Maslyn and C. E. Chaplin, with complete disregard of personal safety and having no previous experience of handling unexploded bombs, immediately volunteered to assist."The bomb was lashed to a sheet of corrugated iron, attached to a truck by wire cable and towed to a crater about 200 yards away where it could do no harm. The task was accomplished in little more than half-an-hour from the time the bomb had fallen. The bomb exploded the following morning. "Throughout the operation these men displayed cool courage of the highest order and contributed largely to the removal of a serious threat to the production of this factory." Note: Lieutenant J. M. S. Patton was awarded the George Cross and Captain D. W. C. Cunnington, also of the Royal Canadian Engineers, the George Medal for their gallantry on this occasion. 1968 September: Serious flooding across Surrey: The summer of 1968 had been exceptionally wet and at Hambledon over 16 inches of rain was recorded, compared with just over six inches the previous year. On 14 September heavy rain fell across Surrey and continued the next day when the first reports of flooding were received. By 10am there had been 18 reports of roads and houses being flooded, followed by another 53 reports by noon, this time covering landslides, collapsed bridges and fallen trees and telephone lines. Officers throughout the county were involved in helping the public, diverting traffic and setting up evacuation centres. Military assistance was also sought. By 18 September the situation began to improve in most areas but two people lost their lives and more than 1,800 people were evacuated. A dog handler who had been sent to a house at Buckland near Dorking, where people had been trapped by the rising floodwater, had a lucky escape. The policeman left his vehicle and the dog and wearily waded through the flooded garden towards the house. It is very difficult to walk in deep water particularly when you cannot see what is underfoot and there is always the danger of tripping over. Suddenly he disappeared having discovered the swimming pool. Fortunately he was a swimmer and able to extricate himself and was obviously uninjured by the flow of dog handler obscenities that rang out above the sound of rushing water. Dorking formed a boat section using a boat won in a cornflake competition by PC Eddie Armstrong. The boat with DS McFadden and PC Bob Bartlett along with Eddie undertook a number of rescues in the towns and villages 1972 September – day of the Farnborough Air Show: UK's worst air crash kills 118: All 118 people on board a flight from London Heathrow to Brussels have died when the airliner crashed minutes after take-off. The British European Airways plane came down in a field in Staines, missing the town centre by just a few hundred yards. It is the worst disaster in British aviation history. The Trident jet - which had been involved in another accident in 1968 - left Heathrow at 1708 BST and was only three miles (4.8 km) from the airport when witnesses said it "dropped out of the sky". Surrey Constabulary officers including PC Doug Rowlands attended in large numbers. (PC Rowlands had been first on the scene at another major plane crash) Read more on the Staines crash by clicking photograph 1987 15 October: Hurricane strikes the south of England with massive damage to buildings and trees followed by numerous roads blocked. Hundreds of calls received overnight in the Control Room including calls from other overwhelmed police forces. The paper messages written that night are lodged in the County Records Office but closed until 2017. (Click for BBC Report) 1975 20 November at 4pm an HS125 taking off from Dunsfold Airfield struck a car on the A281 Guildford to Horsham Road, killing the woman and five girls travelling inside. Sergeant Robert Bartlett the Cranleigh Sergeant was sent by Control to the A281 Guildford to Horsham Road at the end of the Dunsfold runway, where a plane was reported to have crashed. Dunsfold was an airfield owned by British Aerospace and here they put together the Harrier fighter plane, and did the test flights. The Harriers had been known to crash and pilots had been killed in the past. He was very soon on the scene and as he parked the police car on the A281 at the end of the runway, alongside the cars of the public who had been using the road he could see an aircraft about 2-300 yards to the east of the road, on its belly and in a field. The sergeant booked arrival with HQ Control telling them that it was probably a Harrier involved in the crash and that he would check and call them back. As he got near to the aircraft it became obvious that it was very much larger than a Harrier, and it would turn out to be an HS125, which was a passenger carrying aircraft. Not an airliner but more a large executive jet. Click photo for full A.A.I.B. report on Dunsfold crash Click on photo for Pathe News video http://www.fernhurstsociety.org.uk/caravelle.html http://www.gatwickaviationsociety.org.uk/YA-FAR.asp http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/18/newsid_2515000/2515787.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/october/16/newsid_3174000/3174374.stm http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19751120-1 http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=45325Surrey Constabulary 'For those who served' 1851 - 1992 Editor: Robert Bartlett. Website Design & Maintenance: Denis Turner. This website was created using MAGIX Website Maker You will need the current version of Adobe Flash Player to view it. Further information can be found at magix.info - the Multimedia Knowledge Community by MAGIX, the market leader for music, photo, and video software. |