You are hereArchive - Feb 6, 2009
Archive - Feb 6, 2009
1952: De Havilland 110 had just broken sound barrier when it broke apart over spectators showering them with debris

Sometimes things, purely odd, happen. However the disaster on September 6, 1952, prompted the introduction of stringent safety measures to protect spectators at air shows and no member of the public has been killed at a British air show since.
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At the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire on 6 September 1952, thousands of spectators watched as a De Havilland 110 aircraft broke the sound barrier and then disintegrated in the sky above them and fell to earth. The De Havilland 110 fighter had just broken the sound barrier when it broke up over the spectators, showering them with debris. Among the dead are the pilot, John Derry, and the flight test observer Anthony Richards. The two airmen had completed one fly-past in which they amazed 130, 000 spectators by breaking the sound barrier to produce a sonic boom.
















