Monday 24th April 1939, Sgt Sidney Victor Evetts climb's into his Hawker Hurricane and straps in ready to do an hour of aerobatic practice, the aircraft bursts into life. As Sgt Evetts complete's his vital pre-flight checks, temp's and presure's ok, he turns the aircraft onto the then grass runway,the Hurricane takes to the air and heads to the east, the time is 13.55hrs.

By 15.15hrs the Hurricane and Sgt Evetts had not returned and was then reported overdue.

At approximately 14.40 hrs over the village of Ingatestone,Essex near the main A12 road the sound of an aircraft could be heard, the aircraft broke cloud at around 2'000 feet (600 mtr) out of control and in a steep dive, it vanished towards the village of Margaretting. The Hurricane crashed into a meadow at Newlands Farm, Margaretting, killing its pilot Sgt Sidney Victor Evetts.

 

An inquest was held at the Shire Hall, Chelmsford.

Witness; Police Constable, Gilder

" I was stationary in a motor car at 2.30pm, and heard the roar and looked up to see an RAF mono plane dive slowly, spiral and disappear behind the railway line".

Witness; Police Costable, Bland.

" Parts of the aircraft were strewn over 200yds".

Identification; Flt. Lt. Soden.of RAF North Weald.

Flt Lt Soden Of RAF North Weald, proved it was Sgt Evetts by his wallet and the number on the Gun Camera

 

VERDICT;

Coroner, L.F. Beccles, recorded. A verdict of accidental death was returned.

 

The Dig 1977

The excavation was carried out in September 1977, we had located the area of the crash site three weeks before the dig, after a search in the wrong area

shown to us by an eyewitness to the crash, he was totaly sure of the field but infact we were around 1 mile from the crash site.

 

A veiw of the dig in 1977

This was due to the fact that he had been around five years old at the time of the crash,and the crash site had seemed a lot nearer to his home than it was.

Luck was on our side and we went for a drive with the witness and what we found was an identical corner in the road around ½ a mile away, and the field did have a similar look to the one he had shown us earlier and after a short search with the detector the aircraft had been located.

The Watts two blade propeller boss

We carried out the excavation in one day and a lot of good finds came to light although we did not find the engine, this had been removed in 1939.

Robin Hill with the Spade Grip ( control column )

The remains of L1599 are on display in the Museum, We have been trying to trace a picture of Sgt Evetts since 1977 without success .