Hunter under Tower Bridge - Animert video fra Vulcan to the sky

Fra min korrespondent i Vanse . (Red.)

A Hunter flies down the Thames and through Tower Bridge!

 

Just after midday on 5 April 1968 (51 years ago today), RAF pilot Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock, senior operational flight commander on No. 1 (Fighter) Squadron, flew Hawker Hunter FGA.9 XF442 through the span of Tower Bridge in London. The unauthorised action - which cost him his air force career - was part of a personal protest against the RAF's decision not to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a flypast over the capital. While en-route from RAF Tangmere in West Sussex to his squadron's home airfield at RAF West Raynham in Norfolk, Flt Lt Pollock flew into central London, circled the Houses of Parliament three times – carefully avoiding the 387 feet tall (118metre) Millbank Tower – then headed down the River Thames at very low level. He said afterwards that it was only as the "matronly structure" of the world's most famous bridge loomed ahead that the irresistible idea of going straight through the middle of it occurred to him.

 

 

No photograph is known to exist of the incident, although it has been immortalised in lots of paintings over the years

 

HEAR ALAN POLLOCK IN INTERVIEW AS HE RECOUNTS THE MOMENT IN THE VIDEO ABOVE