QUEEN MOTHER TOOK CONTROLS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30593, 9 November 1964, Page 13

QUEEN MOTHER TOOK CONTROLS

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, Nov. 8. A test pilot, John Cunningham, said yesterday the Queen Mother had done “absolutely nothing” to jeopardise the safety of a Comet jet at whose controls she sat on a flight over Europe 12 years ago.

“There was never any danger. We were not at all worried,” he said.

In his autobiography, to be published on Monday, the former 8.0.A.C. chairman, Sir Miles Thomas, tells how the Comet began to “porpoise”

up and down after the Queen Mother pushed the control column forward to see if they could go as fast as a Meteor jet fighter. The incident occurred shortly before the tragic series of Comet 1 air disasters. “I still shudder to think of that flight,” says Sir Miles Thomas.

Group Captain Cunningham said yesterday he disagreed with Sir Miles Thomas’s version of what took place. He said: “The Queen Mother did ask if we could fly as fast as a Meteor fighter, and we did in fact go up to over 500 m.p.h. “But throughout we were flying well within the test and development specification, and the only thing that we noticed was some buffeting. There was never any danger. We were not at all worried.

“And in any case the aircraft was still under the complete control of the test pilot, Mr Peter Bugge, in the pilot’s seat.”