Incidentally you may be interested in this http://www.ukserials.com/losses-1957.htm during the days when we seemed to be loosing a whole modern day Air Force worth of a/c in accidents each year.
We did loose large numbers of aircraft in the ’50s for all sorts of reasons.
Colin Cummings did some excellent books listing out both the material and human casualties. I did some summarizing from the volume for the four years 1950-53 inclusive. From a total air force of roughly 4-5000 aircraft, some 1600 were written off. Sadly some 1191 aircrew were killed. It was unusual for accidents to make the press, and this rate of attrition was considered normal.
In about 1953 Churchill reputedly asked what was the life expectancy of an RAF fighter pilot. He was told that a pilot had a 16 to 1 chance of being killed inside his first 18 months on a squadron, which was considered acceptable. Churchill said “That may be acceptable to a civil servant, but it is not acceptable to me” Subsequently greater attention was paid to safety and the accident rate dropped.
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