Exclusive: a Hawk T2 getting airborne from RAF Valley, N. Wales. As it rolls down the runway flames appear from the rear of the jet. The Hawk T2 does not have reheat (afterburner). As the jet climbs the flames seem to disappear. The main Hydraulic system is on the... rear left side.show more

I’ve watched jets from this spot many times. The Hawk T2 is getting airborne off Runway 31 (Rhosneigr end). The crash site was near Pencarnisiog, which is turning finals for Rwy 31. About 80% around the circuit to land.

I've never seen a Hawk do that before, doesn't look healthy.

Tried to call.

Looks like a major fire in the Ground Turbine Starter (GTS) Bay. This is an APU - a small gas turbine, mounted above the main engine used to spool it up for start. It uses the same fuel Jet A-1, as the main engine. If the main engine had let go, that early into the take off roll, it's unlikely they would have gotten airborne. Seems like it then led to a serious loss of flying controls - the sharp pitch ups captured in the other video are too close and aggressive to be pilot induced, hence the immediate ejection. No point in staying with the a/c to 'point it away from houses' etc., as it looks like they had no control anyway. S.O.P. is to bang out at that point so's not to add two casualties and also be able to tell the Accident Investigation Board what happened.

Make sure the MoD gets this footage, it'll be critical for any investigation

V1… V2… I strongly doubt they had any idea how bad it was while they still had time to stop. No choice but to attempt to go around or at least gain enough height the seats would work well.

Who knew there were so many aircraft technicians on twitter, all with an expert opinion

Whoever was in the caravan or tower should have called a stop, that didn't look past a rotate speed.

APU fire

It's really easy for folk to say the takeoff should have been cancelled but we don't know if the tower were watching it that closely - as for the guys on the runway, maybe they didn't realise how bad it actually was? Give the ground personnel and flight crew a break

Mikey, must you go for clicks? You’re an experienced ex-RAF pilot. How would you feel if you had crashed and everyone picked over the bones before the dust had even settled. Wait for the Board to determine what happened!

I’ve never speculated on what happened. I’m just sharing footage having spent many hours around this base and these aircraft, and knowing a fair bit about the jet:

Except for the ‘suggestion’ about the main hydraulic system being on the left hand side. Especially given that the hydraulics are all over the place!

@MikeyKayFilms have a day off, its an educated reasonable assumption and observation

@MikeyKayFilms Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It’s an observation based on little information, that’s for sure. Hyd 1 is the ‘main’ system. Its external indicators, refill, etc., are on the right side of the aircraft, not the left. Not that it matters, because the pipe work goes all over!

@boondog95 @MikeyKayFilms Calm down Karen

@boondog95 @MikeyKayFilms Whatever. OP says he knows a fair bit about the jets. I’m just correcting a basic factual error in what he stated. But hey, you’re probably not into actual facts. Says it all, really.

APU fire

Wow!

Looks like some sort of catastrophic engine failure during take off. Thankfully the pilots were able to eject to safely & no one was involved on the ground. Just prior to ejection the nose of the aircraft pitches up high & the aircraft is clearly out of control & unrecoverable.🙏🏻

If that was the engine going bang they would have stopped on the runway surely. Looks like coming from the spine of the aircraft where the GTS is.

I commented on another post that I thought they must’ve suffered a total loss of control surfaces by losing their hydraulics. Otherwise millutary pilots likely would’ve ridden that plane in closer to the ground before ejecting to protect the surrounding civilians. That would make even more sense if those flames came from leaking hydraulic fluid. I don’t think. I’ve never seen flames erupt from that spot on crash film.

Flame appears to come from the spine. APU?

Surely warrants a rejected takeoff

Time to retire these old bangers. Civilians nearly died today.

the way everyone in the comments is diagnosing this like theyre on the crash investigation board and the plane is just sitting there like yeah i know

Looks like a massive fuel fire from the GTS fuel supply system. No other fuel piping around there.

Was the person in the caravan not watching 🤷‍♂️

Saw more of this incident on the BBC News at Six, a very fortunate crash landing so close to a caravan park.

The early signs were there …

Any reason why ATC did not command them to stop shortly after commencing takeoff? Surely it is ATC's duty to watch each and every takeoff and landing?

If you run it in slow motion you can see that there is a line of something coming from high up aft the cockpit and before the tailfin where the Gravity filler cap is located, as this reaches the hot exhaust it flashes off.

@OnDisasters It’s got it now

Wow this definitely adds a lot more detail!

That looks so early.. why did they not abort the roll. Surely second seat / instructor had head in cockpit; saw a pressure dip or a temp rise.

@aaibgovuk going to be interested in this, surely. Glad you were there to capture it!

Always thought Hawks shoud have a reheat capability.

Went wrong early...suspect maintenance mistake.

We had a good and incident free airshow in South Africa this past weekend....using Bae Hawks and Gripens. follow #aad2026 and see the beauty of Africa

Pure speculation, but I suspect the aux starter turbine has self combusted, which then burnt the controls for the horizontal stabilisers in the tail, which would explain why the ejection video shows the Hawk to be uncontrollable, so the pilots had no choice but to eject.

@timdavies_uk