This Hurricane was flying with another of the same training unit when they flew straight into a rock face on Slight Side, Scafell on the 12th of August 1941 whilst on a training excerise. It appeared that the pilots were unaware of their position whilst flying in cloud, descended and struck the mountain. Both pilots were killed instantly. This pilot was the formation leader.

Pilot - Sgt Stanislaw Karubin PAF (793420), aged 25, buried Castletown Cemetery, Sunderland.

Stanislaw Karubin was a Battle of Britain ace. He was born on 19th October 1915 in Warsaw and trained at the Szkoola Podoficerow dla Maloletnich in Bydgoszcz. In 1939 he was posted to the 111 Eskadra. He is credited with destroying a Bf110 in September 1939 with this Unit. He escaped from Poland and served in ECD I/55 in France in May 1940 flying a range of fighter aircraft. After the fall of France he joined 303 Sqdn at Northolt on its formation on 2nd August 1940 and shot down a number of enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain. In early September he was himself shot down by a He111 (whilst he also shot down!), Hurricane V7290 crashed at Pembury; he sustained injuries and was admitted to Farnborough Hospital, though his stay must have been brief as he destroyed a BF109 on 30th September 1940. He was credited with a number of "kills", though the exact number is not yet known by me - sources seem to vary. One incident, probably the one at the begining of September 1940, whilst going after a Bf109 he forced it lower and lower until the two were just above the treetops. When Karubin finally exhausted his ammunition, he flew straight for the 109, missing it by only a yard or two. The unnerved German lost control and crashed. Ten days later on 15th September he tried the same thing again, but this time misjudged things and struck the German aircraft and was left to bail out over the Thames Estuary. These action were occasionally carried out by Polish pilots, one other sadly died doing the same thing. He was awarded the VM (5th Class) on 23rd December 1940 and the KW on 23rd December 1940. He was later posted to instructional duties, firstly to 58 OTU at Grangemouth on 7th March 1941 and later to 55 OTU at Usworth, Sunderland, the Unit he was flying with when he was sadly killed. He was awarded the DFM on 30th October 1941 and two Bars to the KW on 31st October 1947.

Myself and Will Lund first located this crash site in May 2003. The impact point was high up on the solid rock, the aircraft the exploded and the majority of wreckage fell down the scree.

Much of wreckage still remains at the site. We located both undercarriage legs, the Merlin's crankshaft ( somewhat bent, although it shows the force in which the aircraft struck) and the engines radiator amongst other interesting finds. Due to bad weather we opted not to search for the other Hurricane and leave it for another day. This fresh search was planned for the coming months but due to other things cropping up this took a further four years before we returned to the crash sites.

The other Hurricane that was flying with this one also crashed into Slight Side, a memorial cross is at other site. Due to fog we failed to find this one. I assume from the basic knowledge I have gained on formation flying that as this aircraft crashed higher in altitude than the other (unfound one, at the time of my first visit) and that this was the formation leaders aircraft. The leader would fly at a height and the aircraft formating on him would fly just below him below either wing. As the other aircraft crashed at a lower height to this one (so I am told) I have made the assumtion that this is therefore the Leaders aircraft. I could be wrong.