Lancashire Aircraft Investigation Team will be staging this exhibition, telling the story of an RAF Mustang that crashed at Wrightington on the 15 of February 1945
The plane had been reassembled and was test flown on the 13February 1945 and again on the 15 February. It was being flown from Kirkbride in Cumbria to Ringway near Manchester by an A.T.A. (Air Transport Auxiliary) pilot; Third Officer Albert Edward (Roy) Fairman, who had taken off at approx. 15.20 hours for this routine ferry flight.
The Mustang had, in fact, impacted into a small pond in the front “garden” of the small holding, only a few yards from the house, apparently just as the Bannister family, who occupied the house at the time, were sitting down to a meal. Although the house was badly damaged, with the windows blown in and the roof partially ripped off, mercifully it did not catch fire and all the family members, who had thrown themselves to the floor believing a bomb had gone off, were apparently unhurt, though badly shocked.
The pilot, Albert Edward (Roy) Fairman (pictured) was born and raised in Greenwich, he attended Sir Walter St.John’s School, Battersea, where he earned distinction in many branches of sport and before the war he worked in the City office of a firm of Dutch bankers.
Lancashire Air Investigation Team excavated the site in June 2010 .The excavation project was the culmination of some 8 years research.
The exhibition will be in the Foyer on the ground floor.
