William Schaffner
This article's factual accuracy is disputed. (March 2009) |
Captain William Schaffner (September 11, 1941 – September 8, 1970) was a pilot in the United States Air Force. He disappeared, presumed dead, flying a BAC Lightning over the North Sea while on exchange with the Royal Air Force.
September 1970 incident
In September 1970, Captain Schaffner was an American exchange pilot flying
The object was then tracked by the
Two Lightning planes were scrambled from RAF Leuchars, to patrol to the north-east of
Captain Schaffner took off from Binbrook in the Lightning plane
Removal of the crashed Lightning
On October 7, 1970, Royal Navy divers located the plane on the sea bed. The plane was recovered from the sea three months later and was remarkably intact. The canopy was closed but the body of Captain Schaffner was not found.[1] The wreckage was taken back to RAF Binbrook for investigation. Normally this would have happened at the MOD Crash Investigation Branch, part of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (now the Air Accidents Investigation Branch) at Farnborough.
September 2014 magazine contribution
In a letter to the aviation magazine FlyPast a retired RAF Sqn Ldr states that his aircraft (Avro Shackleton Mk.III WR981) was the 'Object' tracked by the various radar stations, and the incident was part of a much larger TACEVAL (station TACtical EVALuation) exercise. Two Lightnings were involved. The first made four approaches on the Shackleton, before departing the area while the second started an approach (flown by Capt Schaffner), before breaking off to Starboard. It never re-established contact and the Shackleton crew assumed that it had returned to base, until they were alerted by Uxbridge Centre on the guard frequency, requesting that they begin a search and rescue operation using the call sign Playmate 51.[2]
References
- ^ "Accident English Electric Lightning F6 XS894, 08 Sep 1970". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 24 April 2020.
- ^ FlyPast September 2014 Page 102