I have no memory of taking these Five shots of the plane on fire at Kai Tak. The RAF shared the site with the civil airport and ,although there are Airforce personnel standing watching, it could have been either an RAF or civil plane on fire. Another, and more likely senario, would have been an exercise for the Fire Section personnel.
Date picture taken
1954
Gallery
Comments
Could it be this one? dated in the year before yours
re: Could it be this one?
I don't think so - Curly only arrived in Hong Kong in 1954, and one of his other photos shows the tail of the aircraft has different markings from the one in the 1953 photo:
Looking down the list of accidents at https://gwulo.com/node/13970 we don't have any others from 1954 that match this scene, so could it be an exercise as Curly suggests?
I asked Rob Weir about this…
I asked Rob Weir about this photo, and he mentioned that faults during refueling were also common causes of fires, so that's another possible explanation of this scene.
Re: Plane on Fire
Viewing the photo sequence of the plane on fire and the groups of individuals observing the fire scene, it may well be as Curly suggests that it was an exercise for the Fire Brigade personnel based at the Airport.
In 1954 recommendations were made to upgrade the Airport's fire-fighting capability and appoint a Divisional Fire Officer to be in charge of the Airport. According to the book "Airport of the Nine Dragons", the man chosen for the job as lead Fire Officer "was a stickler for practice drills."