Jim Meads was a photographer living in Hatfield, Hertfordshire near the Hatfield aerodrome in 1962. A pilot friend notified him on September 13th of that year that he would be test flying an English Electric Lightning F1 XG332 if he would like to come take some photos. Happy to get shots of the only British built fighter capable of Mach 2 speeds, he set out toward the airfield hoping to get photos of his children with the F1 landing in the background. The photo he ended up getting would become famous.
As he and his family walked up, a grounds keeper for the airfield approached them in a tractor to tell them to leave the area. That’s when the plane went out of control at a very low altitude with the pilot ejecting at the last possible moment, setting up an incredible, one of kind shot (especially for the time). As it turns out, the pilot was not Mead’s friend, but another test pilot named George Aird. He landed on a tomato greenhouse nearby, crashing through the roof and breaking both legs on the way down. The story is well documented by Aird, Meads, and Mike Sutterby, the tractor bound groundskeeper who was only 23 at the time.
