SBS - WWII Air Crash Detectives (2014) Part 4 The Turweston Crash Death in the Moonlight

In the USA alone over 15,000 Airmen lost their lives in training accidents as the WWII Allies scaled-up their Air forces. The relatives of these young men often have no idea what actually happened and typically the official reasons were put down simply to “pilot error”. From 1939 to 1945 thousands of young airmen met terrible ends not at the hands the enemy's machine guns or because of the murderous flak of anti-aircraft fire, but in catastrophic accidents and training crashes. The staggering losses were not just limited to Britain; all over the world training flights, routine sorties and cargo transport journeys all sometimes ended in disaster. Perhaps it's not so surprising that, amid the weight of the human costs of the air war against Germany, these 'hidden' losses have been forgotten; but all the men in the aircraft that never returned signed up for the same war and they were all someone's father, brother or son. The same letters went home to every family. Luckily, there are those who are determined that those brave men should not be a footnote in military history. They've spent years investigating, uncovering, searching, probing and digging the crash sites – and there are hundreds of them. They are the World War II Air Crash Investigators and now, for the first time, they have agreed to let us join them. In this fascinating new series, WWII Air crash Detective, Garth Barnard, re-opens the investigations of some of the most infamous International WWII Air Disasters using modern techniques and fresh eyes to find out what really happened…. and understand if it could happen again now.

Part 4 The Turweston Crash Death in the Moonlight

In the early hours of 8th July 1944, a normally quiet part of rural Northamptonshire was a hive of activity as the 17 twinned engine Wellington bombers rumbled down the runway of their Turweston airfield home. The Wellington of Pilot Officer Searles and his six strong crew took to the air, but as they climbed into the inky darkness a fireball erupted. Searle's Wellington had collided with another, and the two bombers crashed to the ground in flames. Both crews were killed instantly. Thirteen young men died before their war had even begun. Garth Barnard strives to find out what caused the mid-air collision by reviewing eye-witness accounts, official reports, computer simulations and his own theories.

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