Air Accident Reports
(and associated historic aircraft manuals)

RAE and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) have always worked hand in glove, with AAIB focussing its expertise on accident identification and techniques and Farnborough providing its expertise on the wider aspects of aviation technologies and its testing capability.

Consequently RAE wrote a number of reports on the broader and deeper aspects of aviation accidents (as distinct from investigating the reasons for a particular accident) and these reports, along with the original AAIB reports, were stored in the RAE Library.

A typical example of the deeper analyses made by Farnborough is the RAE files on the investigation of the WW2 Hawker Typhoon accidents which has survived and comprises three large files of all the investigation, including meeting minutes, letters and hand written notes of the investigation.

On the closure of RAE these reports made their way to the FAST Archive and are stored under four main headings:

• Civil
• CAP & NCAP
• Military & RAE
• Miscellaneous (including Gliders, Balloons, Parachutes and Foreign Aircraft)

Around 1900 accident reports survive, as well as a selection of personal papers and diaries of Keith Wood.

FAST also stores, from AAIB, around 180 aircraft manuals and aircraft/engine course notes used during the accident analysis procedures – mostly from the piston engine period but with some jet-based information.

In addition, the FAST Collection holds the complete Comet Accident Analysis Report, including the chapter withheld from publication by the National Archives for some 60 years.

These reports are often supplemented by the photographs and prints – particularly for the Comet investigation – from the FAST Photographic Collection.

Enquiries & Access

If you wish to see any of our archives or artefacts, or to enquire whether we have a particular item, please see Enquiries & Access for details and forms.