The only flyable Lockheed P-38 Lightning in Europe was destroyed and its pilot killed when it crashed during the Flying Legends airshow at Duxford Airfield near Cambridge, England on July 15.
The P-38, which belonged to British warbird enthusiast Stephen Grey’s The Fighter Collection, was being flown by TFC’s chief pilot, Hoof Proudfoot. Despite his Native American-sounding name, the 54-year-old Michael Bryan Proudfoot was born and raised in England.
According to eyewitnesses, it appeared that the P-38 failed to recover from a low-level roll and struck the approach end of Duxford’s paved runway. It exploded on impact and tumbled into a row of transient civil aircraft parked in the grass alongside the runway.
Eight aircraft, including a French Broussard, a Twin Beech, a deHavilland Chipmunk, a Stearman PT-17 and a Stinson Reliant, were destroyed by the fiery wreckage and six others were badly damaged.
The first fatality at a Duxford flying event, Proudfoot was apparently killed instantly by the initial impact.
Proudfoot enlisted in the RAF in 1958 as an electronics technician, but was selected for pilot training three years later. He flew Hawker Hunters in the Far East and was among the first to fly the VTOL Harrier.
Shortly after a three-year exchange tour flying Harriers with the U.S. Marine Corps at MCAS Cherry Point, NC, he was promoted to Squadron Leader and given a staff job at RAF Strike Command. Bored behind a desk, he resigned and took a job flying 757s and 767s for Britannia Airways.
Both of Proudfoot’s sons are professional pilots, one of them a first officer with Britannia Airways.
As bad as it was, the damage could have been much worse. The P-38 barely missed a flight of three B-25 bombers holding at the end of the runway as a mass flight of 10 P-51 Mustangs was taking off.
A rumor (still unconfirmed) circulating at the show shortly after the crash was that the unrecoverable low-level roll might have been caused by the P-38 experiencing an aileron failure or asymmetrical flap extension.
The destroyed P-38 had a strong California connection. In addition to wearing the name “California Cutie” on its nose, it was built at Burbank and restored for Stephen Grey at Chino.
The ill-fated serial number 42-67543 rolled off Lockheed’s Burbank production line in October 1943 as a P-38J, but was converted to a photo-reconnaissance F-5C at its Dallas Love Field facility. After several stateside postings during the war, it was placed in storage, then sold to a private owner in Austin, Tex.
After more than a decade of being vandalized in Austin, the hulk was purchased by legendary P-38 pilot Lefty Gardner in the mid-1960s.
In 1988, the still-untouched airframe was bought by Stephen Grey, who hired Steve Hinton’s Fighter Rebuilders at Chino Airport to restore it to flying condition. The plane was in terrible condition, but by March 1992 the rebuild was complete and the airplane test-flown and shipped to England.
Grey’s The Fighter Collection flew the bare-metal Lightning for two seasons as P-38 ace Jack Ilfrey’s “Happy Jack’s Go Buggy.” In 1994, it was painted olive drab with yellow spinners to represent the plane flown by Lt. Dick Loehnert in 1944: “California Cutie.”
Source: From the Pacific Flyer, VOL. XIX, No.8, August 1996: via http://www.dreamfinder.org/Inquiry.htm
Video
The crash was caught on camera
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