Phantom FGR.2 of 228 OCU, XV428 CC, seen at Leuchars during the first half of 1988. This special livery was applied for the airshow circuit. Sadly the aircraft was destroyed in an accident at RAF Abingdon in Sept. 1988
Above; Mark Smith photo, Wethersfield, June 1988. Posted on the British F-4 Phantom group on FB.
On 23 September 1988, the crew of XV428 flew to RAF Abingdon to carry out a display practise prior to the air display the next day.. On arrival at Abingdon, they overflew the airfield at 2000ft before running in for their practice. During this overflight, they confirmed that the minimum height for the display was to be 500ft and they discussed the position of the display line and crowd centre. They were passed the surface wind as being between 240 & 330 degrees at 10 to 20 kts with occasional gusts to 30kts. Having cleared the airfield area, XV428 then ran in from the west along the display axis parallel to and north of runway 08 with the crowdline 780ft to their right. The aircraft was well to the right of crowd centre after completing a left 360 degrees hard turn since no allowance appeared to have been made for the strong wind. It was seen to roll out of the turn and immediately enter a very hard pull up using full reheat. As it approached the top of the loop, the aircraft appeared to be slower and lower than usual and at the apex, it was seen to fly in the inverted position for several seconds; the pilot appeared to be 'pushing' and maintaining level flight. During the second half of the loop, the initial pitch rate to the vertical appeared slow and at the vertical the aircraft was alarmingly low. From there on the pull became increasingly hard and some wing rock occured and just before impact the aircraft achieved a nose up attitude of 10-15 degrees but with a massive rate of descent. The Phantom impacted tail first some 819ft from and parallel to the crowd line. It disintegrated immediately and wreckage came no closer than 400ft to the crowd line. The crew were killed on impact with the ground. A very sad day indeed at Abingdon, RIP Flt Lt Chris Lackman and Flt Lt Thompson..
Mark Smith photo
Incidentally, Chris Lackman had converted to the Phantom from Vulcans, he was one of the 'Black Buck 6' crew during Falklands.
Chris Lackman was also the Vulcan copilot on Black Bucks 4, 5 and 6, the defence suppression missions flown from ASI to the Falklands. Black Buck 6 resulted in an emergency diversion into Rio International. Chris's captain was awarded the DFC for that mission but Chris also played a big part in the recovery, which was touch and go all the way in with the aircraft de-pressurised at 45,000 ft, the door hatch open and difficult to re-close, the crew on pressure breathing for 30 mins, and with 2 Northrop F-5s in chase. The aircraft landed with only 1500 lbs of fuel (insufficient for one visual circuit). For the very first time (and after some 34 years) this story has now been told in its entirety in Tony Blackman's book, Vulcan Boys. This story has never been told before, which includes technical detail of how the Shrike missiles were launched against Argentinian radars, the diversion into Rio, and the involvement of the CIA and Pope John Paul VI in the crew's release. A riveting read.
artwork by Fenris at https://live.warthunder.com/post/868441/en/
More on the Lackman crash via the web archive of the National Archives here
