CRASHED AIRCRAFT DAMAGE, BICKENHILL (CLAIM) (Hansard, 17 July 1946)

§ Sir John Mellor (Sutton Coldfield)
I think that all hon. Members will have had experience only too often of Departmental delays and confusions. It is a case of that type which I wish to bring to the notice of the House this evening. It is a case involving two Departments, and I think that the delay and confusion were aggravated by there having been no proper contact between the two Departments and, indeed, no proper contact between the central and local offices of those Departments.
The facts are as follow: On 3rd January of this year, an aircraft crashed on Castle Hill Farm, Bickenhill, Warwickshire, in my constituency and, seven weeks later, the valuer for the tenants of the farm wrote a letter, dated east February, to the Under-Secretary at the Air Ministry in London. In the course of that letter he wrote: On Saturday, 12th January, my clients telephoned and asked me to go over at once as the R.A.F. salvage gang were making a terrible mess. On arrival, I found that such was indeed the case, several heavy vehicles had become completely bogged, and the field was badly cut up. The drive to the farm (a long one) and the yard, which had recently been repaired by my clients at considerable expense, was in a shocking state, and impassable to ordinary vehicles. Briefly, much unnecessary damage was done owing to the complete lack of any intelligence on behalf of the R.A.F. salvage gang, who did not appear to care what damage they did. The vehicles were finally extricated the following afternoon, after much more damage had been done. Upon inquiry at the station, nobody could, or would, give any information as to who would be dealing with the question of compensation. The following week I was in conversation with No. 6 Works Area at Rugeley… and, upon asking who would be settling this claim, I was informed that they would, but that nothing could be done until the report was received from the station concerned. I have telephoned on three further occasions, 1346 with the same result. My clients have been put to inconvenience and expense in this matter, and still have the major part of the reinstatement to do. I was there again yesterday "— That would be 20th February— and find that the site where the aircraft fell and burned out has not been properly cleared up and that boards used under the wheels of the lorries are still lying where they were dropped, the R.A.F. making no attempt to clear anything up after leaving. I enclose my claim for damage … The claim amounts to £256 and is set out in considerable detail. The next step I have to mention is a letter from the Director of Lands and Requisitioning at the Air Ministry, written a week later, on 1st March. In that letter the Director of Lands and Requisitioning wrote: I am directed to refer to your letter, dated 21st February, relative to a claim for damage caused by a crashed aircraft on your client's farm"— that is, Messrs. W. J. Hadley and Sons, of Castle Hills Farm, Bickenhill— and to inform you that instructions have been issued to the Superintendent Engineer, No. 6 Works Area, Rugeley, to investigate this matter and report thereon as soon as possible. In this connection, a representative of the superintending engineer will be contacting you without delay. Upon receipt at this headquarters of the requisite information, consideration will be given to the matter, and a further communication will be addressed to you. Meanwhile I am to express regret for the inconvenience which your client and yourself have been occasioned. That was on 1st March, and after that there was nothing further in the way of documents until 1st May. That does not mean that nothing happened during that time, because the valuer was continually pressing over the telephone for some information as to what was happening. On 1st May the valuer wrote again to the Director of Lands and Requisitioning at the Air Ministry, and it is to be noticed that this was four months after the date of the crash. The valuer wrote: Further to your letter of 1st March, a representative from No. 6 Works Area called upon me shortly after receipt of your letter. He had inspected the damage and appeared to agree with my complaints. Since then, nothing further has been done in spite of several telephone calls "— This is the most remarkable thing which emerges— Upon further inquiries today I am now informed that the matter has been passed on to the Fleet Air Arm and it appears that if this passing on continues to its logical conclusion my client will continue to suffer this 1347 great inconvenience while the various Government Departments try to make up their minds as to the responsibility. In reply to that letter, the Director of Lands and Requisitioning wrote, on 7th May: I am directed to refer to your letter dated 1st May, 1946, previously acknowledged, and to confirm the telephonic communication of 4th inst. to the writer of this letter. As explained,— I think this is a singular sentence— some difficulty was experienced in establishing the identity of the aircraft involved and which proved to have been operated by the Royal Naval Air Service. In these circumstances, and under the agreed departmental procedure for dealing with arising claims, it has been necessary to forward the claim in question for consideration and settlement by the Admiralty Land Surveyor at Sutton Cold-field, and action to this effect has been taken by the Superintending Engineer, No. 6 Works Area I am to express regret that some unavoidable delay has been occasioned in this matter with consequential inconvenience to your clients, and in order to assist, the Superintending Engineer has been asked to contact the Admiralty Land Surveyor with the purpose in view of expediting consideration of the claim. After that there is nothing further in the form of documents, but I received a letter dated 11th June from the valuer, asking me to take the matter up. I then put down a Question on the Order Paper. That Question was originally addressed to the Under-Secretary of State for Air, but it was transferred, and replied to by the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty. He replied in these terms: The damage was caused by a Naval aircraft. I much regret the delays, which were due to the erroneous impression of the claimant that the crashed aircraft belonged to the Royal Air Force and to the failure of the parent Naval Air Station to take the action prescribed for reporting accidents. Steps have been taken to ensure that the prescribed procedure is strictly adhered to in future and instructions have been given for this claim to be dealt with immediately."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th June, 1946; Vol. 424, C. 56.] I think it was a bit stiff on the part of the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty to try to fasten some of the blame upon my constituent, having regard to the fact that the Air Ministry in London were under the impression for four months that the aircraft belonged to the R.A.F., and that their local representative did not discover the fact that it was a naval aircraft until March. The Navy apparently did nothing to try to disillusion my constituent with regard to the aircraft, be- 1348 cause the salvage party cleared off, declining to give any information whatever as to the steps which my constituent should take to pursue his claim. On 10th July, in reply to a further Question which I put on the Order Paper, the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty said: This crash was reported to the Admiralty on 3rd January as a casualty, but as already indicated in the reply I gave to the hon. Member on 19th May, owing to the failure of the parent naval air station to take all the action prescribed for reporting accidents, it was not simultaneously reported as a claim. Notice of the claim in respect of damage caused by the crash and by the salvage operations which were carried out by the local naval authorities was not received until early in May, when the papers were forwarded to the Admiralty by the Air Ministry. I understand the tenant's agent was simultaneously informed that his claim had been so forwarded. Owing to the lapse of time and subsequent dispersal of officers and men, considerable difficulty was experienced in confirming the facts, but a meeting on the site was held on 28th June as a result of which the claim was settled to the tenant's satisfaction. To a further Question on the same day the Under-Secretary of State for Air replied: I am afraid there was a misunderstanding when this claim was put to the Air Ministry. The tenant's agent told us that the Royal Air Force had caused the damage. In March, however, our local Works officer found out that the crashed aircraft had belonged to a naval air station in Scotland; also that the Navy, not the R.A.F., had been responsible for the damage done in taking it away. After these facts had been established, the case was not well handled, and, unfortunately, none of the information was passed on to the agent or to the Admiralty until early in May. I regret this delay in correcting the original impression that the R.A.F. had any responsibility in this case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th July, 1946; Vol. 425, C. 374–375.] I think it a most extraordinary thing that the local works officer of the Air Ministry became aware in March—two months after the crash—of the identity of this aircraft, and aware that it did not concern the Air Ministry but the Admiralty, and yet he took no action whatsoever to inform my constituent that his claim should in future be directed to the Admiralty nor did he inform the Admiralty or the Air Ministry. In fact, he did nothing at all, so far as I can understand, and for a further two months my constituent continued to look to the Air Ministry and they continued in negotiation with my constituent. It seems that this requires some fuller explanation. I have received many courteous apologies and my constituent has received a sum which apparently he considers sufficient compensation for damage done, but an in- 1349 cident of this kind makes one wonder whether the organisation in these two Departments does not require a very substantial overhaul and whether the conduct of the officers responsible does not demand a very thorough investigation. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Air and the Financial Secretary to the Admiralty, who I know have gone into this matter carefully, will give to the House a full explanation of how this deplorable muddle and confusion came about.

§ The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. John Dugdale)
The hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. We have gone into this matter very carefully and, if it is any consolation to him, I can assure him that it has taken both my hon. Friend and myself and a large number of high officials and high ranking officers quite a considerable amount of time. It is quite proper that it should be so, and I make no complaint about it. I think the best thing I can do is to describe the events as they occurred. A Seafire aircraft landed at Elmdon R.A.F. aerodrome in the hon. Gentleman's constituency on 3rd January. It took off again and crashed almost immediately.
The usual routine is that, when any aeroplane crashes, two reports are made— first, a report on the reasons for the crash, a technical report on the condition of the aircraft, and, secondly, a report that damage was caused, with the necessary statement of claim. That is automatically sent on. Why did that not happen in this case? The first report was undoubtedly sent in. It was a report dealing with the technical aspect of the claim. Why was the second report not sent in? I must state that the Admiralty take entire and complete blame for this and admit that they are at fault, but the reason is this. When the crash occurred——

Mr. Dugdale
When the crash occurred, the commanding officer of the parent aerodrome in Scotland, in his report, stated that a claim in respect of damage to private property had been dealt with 1350 by the Royal Air Force at Elmdon, and here I am speaking with the concurrence of my hon. Friend and not trying to pass the blame from one Department to another. I am only trying to state what the facts are. He stated that the claim had been sent on by the R.A.F. officer in charge, and that he checked it with that officer who had sent this claim in. It was reported to the Fleet Air Ann headquarters at Lee-on-Solent that this had been done, and everybody was satisfied that notice of a claim was being sent in in the normal way, that the R.A.F. officer had, in fact, sent off the claim.
It was not until 9th May, however, that the superintending engineers of the area concerned passed copies of the tenant's claim to the Admiralty. I cannot explain this delay, and my hon. Friend authorises me to say that there is no adequate explanation, but that, in fact, the Air Ministry do admit that they were to blame for this delay of two months in the sending-in of this claim. The delay, incidentally, was not from 1st January, but 10th February, which was the date on which the farmer concerned sent in his claim. I hasten to say that I did not intend for a moment to cast any blame on the farmer for not sending in his claim earlier. If the hon. Gentleman thought I did so, in my reply to him, I would say that all I intended to say was that the claim could not be remedied as early as it might have been because the first information we had was on 20th February. Therefore, there was a delay of six weeks, from 1st January to 20th February, due to the fact that the farmer, quite correctly, did not know where to send in his claim. That accounts for the delay up to the time that the Air Ministry received it.

§ Sir J. Mellor
The hon. Gentleman appreciates that the valuer for the tenant had been making repeated inquiries at Elmdon and elsewhere as to what to do, but was given no information whatever by anyone.

§ Mr. Dugdale
I am informed that, in fact, the complaint was finally sent in on 20th February, and I am simply dating the events from 20th February, because that is the date on which the claim was sent in, and I am dating the delay as from 20th February. I admit that, obviously, the tenant could not send the claim in before, owing to the fact that he did not 1351 know where to send it. The Admiralty department concerned, which eventually received this message, is a department which deals chiefly with the control of land owned, leased or requisitioned by the Admiralty. It is a very busy department, as the hon. Gentleman can well imagine, in view of the great task, in which all hon. Members are concerned at the moment, of derequisitioning land.
This particular job of looking after compensation payments is only one of its many duties, but, in spite of this, the claim, once it got through, was settled very quickly, particularly so in view of the fact that many things had happened in the meantime. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are now in the process of demobilisation. The aerodrome concerned had closed down in the meantime, and was put under care and maintenance. Many of the key ratings of the recovery party who collected the crashed plane and who, as the hon. Gentleman has said, were responsible for further damage, had been demobilised, including the petty officer in command, and it was exceedingly difficult to get all the necessary information. Nevertheless, in spite of this, a meeting was held on the site on 28th June, and the claim settled to the full satisfaction of the farmer, seven weeks after it finally reached the Admiralty.
I have stated that I do not intend to take—and, indeed, I cannot afford to take— on behalf of either Department, a high and mighty line about this matter. I am willing to admit that there has been an error, but I would submit that it is not a complete breakdown. It was an error on the part of one officer who failed to send in his report, so far as the Admiralty are concerned. There was also an error, no doubt, on the part of one officer in the Air Ministry, but that does not mean that the entire system is wrong. Incidentally, instructions have gone out to prevent a recurrence of events such as this.
In conclusion, I would repeat that it is not a general practice we are dealing with; it is a single error, although a bad error. Even the Navy, and, indeed, if I have my hon. Friend's permission to say so, even the Royal Air Force, does, on occasion, make mistakes, but not often. They are few and far between. If I might be allowed to say one final Sword to the farmer who has suffered this 1352 very great inconvenience—"to err is human, to forgive, divine."

§ Sir J. Mellor
May I ask the Financial Secretary, or the Under-Secretary of State for Air, if he is prepared to answer the point, what steps have been taken to examine the local works officer of the Air Ministry who made no move for two months after he had discovered in March that the aircraft belonged to the Navy, to inform his Department, the Admiralty or my constituent? What reason was there for his taking no action? I think that that requires some further explanation.

§ Mr. Dugdale
Steps have been taken to inquire into this matter, but, naturally, the Under-Secretary of State for Air must take the blame, just as I have said that, for my Department, I must take the blame. Steps have been taken to inquire into the matter, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the people in the Department concerned do definitely know that all is not well, and have been told so.

§ Sir J. Mellor
This is a very mysterious matter. Are we to have no explanation as to the reason which was discovered, or whether no reason was discovered? Will not the Under-Secretary of State for Air give some explanation?

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas)
I do not know whether I am in Order in corning in on this, because the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty has really covered the point. However, since there has been a specific question, I should like to say that we have not been able to find out what happened. Of course, it is constitutionally right that the Minister takes the blame because the wrong was done by the Department. We have admitted the wrong. and we take the blame. Investigations are, of course, being made, and the conclusions, so far as any general breakdown is concerned, are as have been stated by the Financial Secretary. As far as we have been able to judge, it is not the system that needs overhauling, but the fact that this man made a mistake.