Hastings Elevator Problems

The Handley Page Hastings was by far and large a very robust and successful aircraft giving 30 years of service in the RAF/RNZAF. The serviceability of the aircraft was generally good and often a flight engineer would not have too many 'snags' to report to a 'grease monkey' upon an afterflight inspection.

However one cause for concern over the lifetime of the Hastings was in the tailplane section where the elevator hinge section was attached to the tailplane, in fact for the majority of the Hastings built it was the 'end of the line' for the Hastybird when TG577 took off with a total of 41 crew and parachutists on board on 06/07/1965. Within minutes of being airborne TG577 plummeted to earth with sadly the loss of all on board. A couple of days later all Hastings were temporarily grounded pending a Court of Inquiry report, this resulted in the failure of the hinge bolt bracket that connected the elevator to the tailplane being fatigued. Subsequent checks found at least 3 other bracket failures and modifications were put into place immediately and within 2 years most of the Hastings were replaced by Lockheed Hercules transport aircraft. My last flight was in one such Hastings of Strike Command in 1968 from Wattisham to Coningsby and return supporting 29 (F) Lightning Squadron.

It is known that over the years that at least 5 Hastings crashed due to elevator problems, some of these accident reports and other Hastings accidents, where the cause is unknown, have their accident record cards missing. The mystery surrounding the lack of information regarding the TG579 crash at Gan raises doubts on what or who was to blame for this accident.

I will state here and now that I have no proof that TG579's demise was caused by elevator or any other technical malfunction, the answer here lies at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, but consider the possibilities:-

1> The pilot of TG579 F/L Bob Scott was a highly experienced pilot with over 5000 flying hours experience with 3500 of those hours in flying Hastings type, he was classified as an above average pilot and held a Master Green Rated Certificate for instrument flying.

2> Two eyewitness reports, one the Duty Officer at Gan on the night of the accident saw the aircraft suddenly drop from 400 ft, the other who helped set up the Board of Inquiry from 224 Group Headquarters recalls the sudden drop from near 500 ft.

3> There was no intention of ditching the aircraft into the sea as the undercarriage was down and locked. The visibility was 1.5 nautical miles so the refraction theory that so many have spoken about could not have existed as the SAR Shackleton took off, searched and found survivors and landed again in the same conditions as Scott was experiencing.

4> The accident report (and newspaper reports from that time) states that the pilot was blinded by a brilliant flash of lightning (most lightning is brilliant!) but it does not state that the co-pilot was affected by this flash so why did TG579 drop like a stone.

5> My theory is that the aircraft was under extreme buffeting from the storm and it must have been difficult for the pilots to control the stability of the aircraft but did this buffeting weaken the elevator hinge bracket to such an extent that the bracket failed and the aircraft dropped.

6> The accident card shows that the aircraft was flying at 420 ft., and at a speed of 125 knots which means that 2 seconds would have elapsed from the time of failure to the aircraft hitting the sea, not even time for the aircraft to have taken a nose down attitude and hardly enough time for the pilots to draw breath!

7> None of the passengers and two of the crew were not aware of any problem until we had hit the sea.

Two airframe fitters recall the modifications made to the hinge bracket mechanism, over a ten year period and both worked at Changi on ASF or 48 Squadron so it is known that there was an ongoing problem, it is also interesting to note that TG577 with the fatalities, that the hinge bracket was strengthened just after the demise of TG579! One of the fitters recalls " The modification that I carried out consisted of fitting preshaped doubler plates at the rearmost point of the elevator outrigger bracket. Which in itself was a light alloy forging bolted to the rear spar of the tailplane. It was about 15 inches long, about 7 inches deep at the spar end tapering to about 3 inches at the end where the elevators were hinged. There were possibly two lightening holes over its length. It was rigid in its vertical plane but it could be flexed if sideways pressure was applied. I think the original failure had been at the point on this outrigger where the attachment bolt was fitted, joining this to the elevator. We fitted doubler plates to top and bottom flanges of this bit and I think fitted longer, high tensile bolts".