Spitfire EN114 mystery solved

On the 29th December 1942 Spitfire EN114 was took off from the Rolls Royce test establishment at Hucknall to carry out full throttle tests at 25,000ft, just 25 minutes later the aicraft was seen to dive into the ground at great speed near Rearsby Village

Detailed accounts from the court of enquiry give little information why it was being tested apart from the crash investigaton. Suspicion was that a rare early form of fuel injection system was installed to the Rolls Royce Merlin 61.

At almost 16ft down the remains of the fuel injection system and the engine was recovered. The engine when cleaned up is set to go on display with the Rolls Royce heritage trust.