We quite often read about aircrew involved in wartime accidents, which perhaps few of us have known, but there have been many other victims of air accidents since and I suspect most of us involved in aviation for any length of time will have lost friends and colleagues close to us.
I remember the events of 18th September 1988, when my good friend Bodo Kaldenberg and his passenger lost their lives arriving at a fly-in at Slinfold, as if it were yesterday and having flown with him many times in previous months in types such as PA-28, Cub, C152, Chipmunk and Jodel D112 and ultimately in the ill-fated D120 G-BKDY at the PFA Rally at Cranfield 10 weeks before the accident, am only too well aware it could have been me in that passenger seat. The accident was never properly explained but appears to have been a stall/spin.
Never forgotten, Bodo’s memory is commemorated by a wooden bench in the car park in front of the Shoreham Airport terminal building, so today I sat on it for a few moments of quiet contemplation.
Who do you remember?
Wicked Willip :diablo:
By: Rocketeer - 18th September 2012 at 18:55
Too many sadly.
One was Graham Wardell who was flying a BAe Hawk 200 at Bratislava, Slovakia June 6th 1999. Lovely chap. Graham was course leader when I did ETPS in 1991. During the course we had an inkling he had flown something special….then as Gulf 1 unfurled, a photo in a magazine of an F117 had his name on it!
These losses hit us hard. Aviation is a small world – flt test even smaller.
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September 18, 2012 at 6:34 pm