Old aircraft crash...

[recycled sixtie]

Going thru some pics of my father in the RAF in the UK and came across this pic of an aircraft crash my father and another pilot experienced in an
Audax round about 1937. He experienced 3 aircraft crashes during his RAF career.

[URY914]

Any landing you can walk away from....

[Robert Adams]

I think it was amazing any of them made it back alive. I have read the mortality rate for US pilots was at about 75%, heard it was worse for RAF.
My dad was a piloted a B-17 Flying Fortress. In his later years he finally began to speak about some of those experiences. Several times came back on a single engine, major mechanicals down or out, low to no gas and flac holes everywhere.
Recalled an occasion a piece of flac severed his communication line, but preferred that to his throat. Another, he said they came back one time and if you held up your hand anywhere on the fuselage you would hit a hole made by flac.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

In my family the RAF mortality rate was much lower, but everyone of them had a crash induced from taking fire. One was coming back to Scotland apparently unscathed. Never heard from again, wingman did not know what happened to him.

They found and brought up an old Lancaster out of Loch Ness several years ago that my Uncle had ditched during the war. Interestingly enough, it was the only model of that aircraft to have "survived" up to that point in time. I think it was the mid '90s, maybe '96 it was brought up. Found with sonar looking for Nessie.