Incident · 8 September 1970 · North Sea off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire (from RAF Binbrook)
Loss of RAF Lightning XS894 and its USAF exchange pilot off Flamborough Head
Also known as Lightning XS894, Foxtrot 94, Captain Schaffner, Schaffner UFO, Riddle of Foxtrot 94
Explained. The RAF Board of Inquiry found that the pilot, shadowing a Shackleton at low speed and height in an exercise, inadvertently flew into the sea; MoD searches found no sign of any unidentified target, and the UFO story first appeared in a newspaper in 1992. (MoD file DEFE 24/1972: alleged UFO involvement in the crash of Lightning F6 XS894 (1970))
On the night of 8 September 1970 an RAF Lightning F6, XS894, flown by Capt. William Schaffner, a U.S. Air Force exchange pilot at RAF Binbrook, went into the North Sea off Flamborough Head during a night exercise; the aircraft was recovered from the seabed, but the pilot was never found. In 1992 the Grimsby Evening Telegraph published a series claiming he had been vectored onto a high-speed unidentified contact and ordered to ditch, with a purported transcript of his last transmissions, and the story spread through UFO books and television.
The Ministry of Defence's UFO desk traced the Board of Inquiry papers and found the Lightning had been shadowing an RAF Shackleton in a training exercise; the Board blamed a rushed, unfamiliar task, the pilot's loss of height awareness and a badly serviced canopy firing unit. The file includes the RAF flight-safety magazine's rebuttal, “Don't believe everything you read!”. No source for the “transcript” has been identified.
Source: MoD file DEFE 24/1972, The National Archives
Facts and claims
- claimed A 1992 newspaper series claimed that Capt. William Schaffner was sent to intercept a contact tracked from Saxa Vord whose speed was “estimated in the region of 17,400mph”, and printed what the writer had been told was “the official transcript” of the pilot describing a bright conical light before the blips merged and his aircraft was ordered to ditch. Source: defe-24-1972.pdf
- documented The Board of Inquiry, as summarised in the file, found that the squadron had cleared the pilot to take part in a tactical evaluation exercise “in the belief that he would not be involved in a shadowing or shepherding mission”, but the exercise had switched to shadowing slow, low-flying Shackletons at 160 knots and 1,500 feet. Source: defe-24-1972.pdf
- documented The wreckage, found nearly two months later, showed the aircraft had struck the sea at low speed with no sign of fire or explosion; the Board concluded that the pilot “failed to monitor the height of his aircraft whilst slowing down and acquiring his target” and “inadvertently flown his aircraft into the sea”, that his ejection failed because the canopy did not jettison, and that he was presumed drowned after abandoning the aircraft. Source: defe-24-1972.pdf
- documented The failure of the canopy cartridge to fire was traced to “negligent servicing, in that the firing unit was incorrectly seated because of damaged screw threads”. Source: defe-24-1972.pdf
- documented An MoD draft reply of 1993 says: “There is absolutely no evidence of any “unidentified aircraft” having been encountered, nor is there any reason to suppose that there is any UFO connection with what remains a tragic accident.” Source: defe-24-1972.pdf
Connected files
Documents
- MoD file DEFE 24/1972: alleged UFO involvement in the crash of Lightning F6 XS894 (1970) (subject of)
Mentioned in this file
- Ministry of Defence (UK) (Organization)
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
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