Boscombe Down incident 1994

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Morgan

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Time goes by but there are things that may stay black for a long, long time. One of the events, that is typed as urban legend today, is Boscombe Down incident that occured in 1994. Internet is full of false info or BS stories but there are places and certain aviation sites, military workers and their buddies that can give some light on the things they 'may' heard of. I can only guess about credibility of informations I've heard but I was fortunate enough to talk with some people that 'may' know some not-so-white things.
I will say it again, I'm not sure whether the infos I've heard are true, so please take it with a big grain of salt!

What I've heard from my crystal ball(s)? : (this is something I have really hard time when trying to believe it but who knows?)
1. It was a take off incident, not a landing one. The aircraft was colored black and gray.
2. The aircraft had a stealth capabilities.
3. C-5 came for the aircraft and took it to KPMD(Plant 42 site).
4. The aircraft was in the UK because of the exercises(well, that is interesting...)
5. The aircraft was after Full Operational Capability, so it rules out of it being demonstrator or prototype.
6. The aircraft was there at Boscombe for more than 24 hours before the incident
7. The UK was involved in program as it was cooperation between US and UK.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to cross-check with my other source which stated that the aircraft was just a test platform that failed on take off.

How about you? Did you learn or know anything else about that very incident? Do the puzzle work together!
 
there's alot about this incident which makes me wonder. The main one being at the end of Runway 23 If it was witnessed from "spotters corner" then surely someone would have had a camera and grabbed a photo?

I agree it was a test bed for something but sadly the Internet and rumours have turned it into something more.

Having worked there myself it simply isn't "Britain's Area 51" that many claim it to be.
 
There's a Spotters' Corner at Boscombe Down?

Last time I was there in 1998, produce a camera on the fence at Boscombe Down and you'd be treated to a nice chat with chaps sporting checked hats and driving Land Rovers who pointed at big signs. Must've changed since.

The guardroom is very nice and has a Lightning on a pole outside.

I wasn't even carrying a camera, but the folks I was with were.

Carry some ID if you'd like let out sooner.

Chris
 
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Aye now that Qinetiq run the site they don't let you in to see the Lightning now. I forget how to get there now, been a few years since I was working there, but often when driving the perimeter track there's an area outside the wire which overlooks Runway 23 and the shorter one and pretty much the whole air side. Often used to see several cars parked up there.
 
did not said incident happen at night? at that time, digital cameras were way in their infancy or did not come about till decade later (my first digital camera was 2004 the helicopter company had theirs from 2002 ...so doubt anyone got any shots with 35mm cameras.

any flash from camera would get attention of MoD police and RAf Police...

Theres many a myriad of theories ranging from

it was a Tornado F.3 testing decoy pod and the mystery front cockpit of mystery craft opened like F-35 was actually the first windscreen opened so work can be done on the HUD

the C-5A/B assigned to support L-M Skunkworks at Palmdale which appeared at BD was there to take pair of the Rotary Wing Test Squadron Sea Kings for desert trials in California

The Army Air Corps then 8 Flight with its A109 Hirundo Special Forces Flight was transiting through there anyway like normal.

Alao as internet was in its infancy no AdSB exchange of flight radar 24 available so can’t check what was the Janet Boeing 737/ T-43A which appeared or the mystery all white Boeing C-137 which turned up at Exeter Airport days after whatever happened.

cheers
 
cloud9 said:
there's alot about this incident which makes me wonder. The main one being at the end of Runway 23 If it was witnessed from "spotters corner" then surely someone would have had a camera and grabbed a photo?

I agree it was a test bed for something but sadly the Internet and rumours have turned it into something more.

Having worked there myself it simply isn't "Britain's Area 51" that many claim it to be.
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the base is a shadow of its former self, not helped that ETPS fleet is mere (my photos from RIAT 2018, Farnborough Air Show Airbus event handover of second Squirrel and RIAT 2022

37203644_10156913580396490_4634942896968040448_n.jpg


37227494_10156913580426490_8989043427253420032_n.jpg


37117214_10156913580311490_3193571749539086336_n.jpg


37268913_10156917411131490_5610890737999675392_n.jpg


then last years RIAT

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So now ETPS has no fast jets what with demise of the Hawk,. likewise too the Centre for Aviation Medicine

QinetiQ though has ordered PC-9, and Da62

www.defenceonline.co.uk

QinetiQ GmbH enlarges its fleet with DA62 and PC-9 B aircraft

QinetiQ GmbH has recently enlarged its fleet with two new Diamond DA62 and nine PC-9 B aircraft, to support the delivery of Aerial Threat Representation capability for our German and wider European customers.
www.defenceonline.co.uk www.defenceonline.co.uk

cheers
 
Indeed when I was there they still had the Harvard which EPTS uses and, I beleive, they fly the Alpha jet now opposed the Hawk.
 
Does anyone have a copy of Air Forces Monthly June 1997? The photo below is from the same issue.
 

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There is no other one. That publication is the only one I'm aware of.
 
hmm, i know its only a fictional artwork, but the Alvis Salamander crash tender shown was long out of service by 1994, the last examples in service (by then painted green) being at MoD. West Freugh and withdrawn by 1980
(I don't recall seeing any images of the A.109 carrying 'nitesun' ? could easily enough be a bolt on tho ?)
 
Just for the record... and because many pages disappear with the passage of time... here is the article I posted back in 1999 on my very first (now defunct) website, and the accompanying image recreation I did back then:

MYSTERIOUS CRASH IN ENGLAND...

1728325220710.png What is that strange Northrop YF-23 lookalike that witnesses swear to have seen crash in Britain, before the authorities forbade all access for several kilometers around the site?

The Northrop YF-23 was the unfortunate loser to Lockheed's YF-22 "Lightning II" (called "Rapier" by the U.S.A.F. and produced as the F-22A "Raptor") in a contest for the next generation fighter/interceptor of the Air Force. And yet Northrop's bird is said to have been much better than its competitor in terms of stealthiness and interception. "Grey Ghost" and "Black Widow", the two prototypes of the YF-23, were first leased to N.A.S.A. after they lost out to the F-22, one of them ending up in a museum and the other in a desert boneyard. The career of that plane now seemed to be history... until a strange aircraft was spotted crashing in the night of Sept. 26, 1994 at Boscombe Down, Wiltshire (England), before the area was sealed off for several miles around the crash site? Those who saw it say that it looked somewhat like an F-23.

One possibility is that by selecting the less stealthy but the most maneuvrable of the two (the F-22) for daytime combat missions, and by sending the F-23 to a museum, people would believe that the F-23 had been canceled in order to better conceal the production of a derivative. Another possibility is that the plane that crashed was not a later model to the F-23, but one of its forecomers that had already been operational for several years.​

British Aerospace's will to produce a stealth fighter for the HALO (High-Altitude Low-Observable) program in cooperation with another (American?) manufacturer within a few years is well-known. However, if that project came to be, its demonstrator wouldn't fly until 2005, with a projected operational start by 2013, so this doesn't account for the strange accident at Boscombe Down. The presence of this secret aircraft on English soil can therefore lead to several interpretations:
  • Either the type is already operational with American armed forces and based in one or several N.A.T.O. countries (thus with a distinct mission from that of the F-22, such as high-altitude interception or ground attack).
  • Or British Aerospace evaluated in the highest secrecy, and with permission from the British government, an early version of the F-23 to get familiar with stealthy technology for its own aircraft project.
  • Or the British government ordered from Northrop an F-23 derivative to complement the Eurofighter, which might end up being already outdated before even being operational considering the way things are going...
  • Or the spotted plane was indeed a Northrop model but it simply was a Northrop TR-3A "Black Manta" operating from Europe on reconnaissance missions.
There is no reason why the U.S.A.F. wouldn't use two fighters, one heavy and the other light, to supercede the F-16 "Fighting Falcon" and the F-15 "Eagle" respectively. We might consequently be hearing about a new operational type in US service within a few years...

All material on this site © 1999 BIS Productions. This site is not related to any fan club or publisher.
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