I can assure you that as a Dutchman I immediately knew which incident was mentioned… 😉
Willem de Kluizenaar died back in 2014.
He suffered a broken ankle after this Dutch Naval Air Service mishap aboard HMS Illustrious.
This certainly did not stop him becoming a Grumman Tracker pilot,
even being promoted Squadron commander of VSQ-2 in 1967
until this squadron was disbanded with the sale of Dutch carrier “Karel Doorman”.
More photos depicting this accident:
http://www.vlaggeschipsmaldeel5.nl/html/mld_en_hms_illustrious__2_.html
Machine translation:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vlaggeschipsmaldeel5.nl%2Fhtml%2Fmld_en_hms_illustrious__2_.html&edit-text=
You will have to scroll down a bit… 😉
According to the original Dutch text at
http://militaireluchtvaartnederland.nl/planes/fighters/102/102/ ,
machine translation text at
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=nl&sl=nl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fmilitaireluchtvaartnederland.nl%2Fplanes%2Ffighters%2F102%2F102%2F
this:
6-27 c / n 6294
• 210951 in use / acquisition
• 000000 VSQ.3,860
• 030953 accident; unsuccessful landing HMS Illustrious and then set on fire.
Lieutenant at Sea W. The Hermit could jump out of the burning machine at the last moment on the deck and walked up a broken ankle.
The wreck was thrown overboard and years later it was fished by a number of aviation enthusiasts in England!
a photo from the well-known series of the deck accident
Lieutenant at Sea the Hermit with Sea Fury FB-51
6-27 of VSQ-860; on the accompanying spectacular picture
the moment the pilot moves to freedom
jumps, straight through the sea of flames
fiercely burning Sea Fury; photo MLD / NIMH
Yes, Hermit = Kluizenaar, the family name of the pilot 😉
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