On the 24th December 1912 the pilot of this aircraft was attempting to be first to fly non-stop from London to Edinburgh. He left Brooklands at 09.10hrs and as he left a gale was already blowing. The pilot had apparently set himself a task of completing this flight before Christmas sometime previously but because of various things which had got in the way this was the first time he had attempted it. He was an experienced pilot. The gale got worse the more northerly he got, the assumed route was that he followed the coast-line. When he was about at the top of the stretch of the Yorkshire coast-line the gale was severe and when he arrived in the Marske area at about 500 feet it was a strong south-westerly gale. Flight magazine quotes witnesses who thought he found himself drifting out to sea in the wind blowing off the Cleveland Hills and that the crash occured when he was attempting to force land the aircraft on the sands. They claimed that the front skid of the aircraft dug into the sand, and the aircraft was sent back into the air by a bout 40 feet. The same magzine also quote from the crash report which then makes no mention of a force-landing attempt. The report stated that the aircraft lost height to 400 feet, and then rose again, its wings then collapsed. The pilot was now no longer in control and the aircraft slipped sideways and crashed into the ground sadly killing the pilot instantly. Vertually straight after the crash the police removed much of the wreckage and burnt much of the wooden parts preventing a detailed examination being carried out.

Pilot - Mr Edward Petre, aged 26. Of Norfolk. Buried Fryerning Churchyard, Ingatestone, Essex.

Edward Petre and a postcard showing the crash site. I would like to thank Mr Jim Rutland for the photo of the pilot and Mr Dave Williams for the copy of the crash site.

The Petre family were well to-do in the Ingatestone area of Essex. Edward Petre and his brother Henry Aloysius Petre became interested in aviation following Bleriots Channel crossing in 1909, they built their own aircraft and displayed it at the 1910 Olympia Aero Show, after which it was flown at Brooklands where one of the brothers crashed it. He was granted his Aviator's Certificate on 24th July 1912, Certificate No. 259. Later Edward joined Handley Page and worked on their monoplane and appears to have made test flights in the new aircraft. Up to his death he worked for the Martin-Handasyde aeroplane company acting as a pilot to their machines at Brooklands. A memorial was erected in Exeter's Catholic Church, taking the form of oak choir-stalls.

The aircraft was built in November 1912