The Tintagel Miracle

The day a fighter jet crashed into a crowded village but, incredibly, everybody in the path of destruction survived

Sitting atop a cliff edge overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, Tintagel, a Cornish village steeped in history and Arthurian legend, was thronged with visitors and others enjoying the summer sun on July 6th 1979. Yet out over the sea, a distant rumbling could be heard, heralding a danger with the potential to shatter their lives.

Flight Lieutenant Alick Nicholson was leading an RAF training exercise off the coastline in his Hawker Hunter jet fighter. The Hunter was a single-seater aircraft weighing up to 11 tonnes and was 14 metres (45ft) long. Nicholson was performing combat manoeuvres north of Tintagel when he heard three very loud bangs which shook his plane. The highly experienced test pilot realised his Hunter could not be kept airborne long enough to reach the nearest airfield. He therefore turned out to sea where he could safely ditch. Crossing back over the coastline with the village passing on his left, Nicholson, at the very last moment at just 300ft (100m), ejected and was quickly rescued although he suffered severe whiplash injuries from the violent ejection.

That should have been the end of it, but Hunter XG197 had other plans. The seat ejection destabilised the jet’s level trim and, while it continued its steady descent, it turned left straight for Tintagel. The Hawker was armed with hundreds of live and practice ammo rounds so, as it roared in at 250mph (430kmh), the village braced itself for disaster. The Hawker crashed down and careered through a field towards the main row of houses facing the sea. Clipping a house on Atlantic Road, the craft smashed cars and scattered masonry before, somehow, slotting itself in a 4 m (12 ft) gap between two houses.

A man who had been painting the house that the aircraft clipped was unhurt in the close shave; a fuel truck which had been delivering fuel to a garage metres away was unscathed despite aircraft wreckage landing metres away; if the Hunter had caught fire in the crash, the ammo cookoff could have caused great damage and loss of life, yet it didn’t; if the aircraft had carried on through the gap, it would have caused many casualties in the high street with its many tourists about. With just three injured, including the pilot, the event was dubbed: ‘the Miracle of Tintagel’ which is still remembered to this day.