The R-101 Disaster: Best Evidence Ever?
by Michael E. Tymn

If you come across some antique pots and pans during your travels, you could be looking at pieces of aviation history. More than that, though, that old cookware might be connected with some of the most amazing evidence of life after death on record.

The salvaged parts of Great Britain’s giant airship R-101, which crashed in France on its maiden overseas voyage, on October 5, 1930, is said to have been turned into cooking ware. A dirigible, the R-101 was the largest airship ever built at that time. After several test flights, the giant airship departed Cardington in England on October 4 at 6:24 p.m. with 54 passengers and crew headed for Karachi, then part of British India. As a result of high winds, it crashed near Beauvais, just north of Paris, early the next morning, killing 48 of the 54 passenger

A little more than a year earlier, during September 1929, warnings about the fate of the R-101 started coming through the mediumship of Eileen Garrett. Emilie Hinchliff had been sitting regularly with Garrett ever since her husband was killed on March 13, 1928. (The story of Raymond Hinchliffe’s fatal trans-Atlantic attempt was told in the March issue of this publication.) “I do not want them to have the same fate that I had, as Johnston [the R-101 navigator] was a good friend of mine,” Hinchliffe told his wife through Garrett. Emilie informed Captain John Morkham, her husband’s good friend, of the messages. Morkham had come to believe that the messages from Hinchliffe were real as he had concluded that the technical language was beyond either Mrs. Garrett or Emilie. Morkham informed Johnston, but Johnston apparently laughed it off.

“There will be an accident,” Hinchliffe related at a later sitting. “I have seen Leslie Hamilton, and he agrees with me.” Hamilton was a friend of Hinchliffe’s who had been killed in a trans-Atlantic attempt in August 1927.

Meanwhile, on July 7, 1930, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had arranged for Emilie to sit with Mrs. Garrett, died. Reports started coming from mediums all around the world that Doyle was communicating through them. Lady Doyle, a sensitive herself, reported receiving numerous messages from her deceased husband. On October 2, 1930, three days before the R-101 set off on its fatal flight, Ian Coster, a London journalist, contacted Harry Price, a psychical researcher, to see if Price could arrange for a séance and hopefully contact Doyle. While Price was known primarily as a debunker of mediums, he had come to accept that some were real. He recommended Eileen Garrett, and a sitting was scheduled for October 7.

On October 6, the day after the R-101 disaster, Emilie sat with Beatrice Earl, another medium. “I am in the state of despair,” her husband communicated through a Ouija board. “I hoped that the crash could be averted, and even at the last moment we were working in some way to warn those in command of the ship. I know that death is not the end, but I hold life on earth as important to progress as life here, and willful disregard of warnings is suicide.”

Like everyone else in England, Coster and Price had been shaken by the news of the R-101 disaster, but they decided to go ahead with their October 7 appointment with Mrs. Garrett to see if Conan Doyle would communicate. After Garrett went into trance, Uvani, her spirit control, began speaking and said someone named Irwin or Irving wanted to communicate. Garrett’s voice changed again and a man appeared to be speaking. He identified himself as Flight Lieutenant H. Carmichael Irwin, captain of the R-101. The initial words were weak and he appeared to be under great stress. “The whole bulk of the dirigible was entirely and absolutely too much for her engine capacity,” the somewhat garbled message began. The messages continued in staccato sentences. “Flying too low altitude and could never rise…Disposable lift could not be utilized…Load too great for long flight…Cruising speed bad and ship badly swinging…Engines wrong…Too heavy – cannot rise…Never reached cruising altitude…Too short trials…No one knew the ship properly…Weather bad for long flight…Fabric all waterlogged and ship’s nose is down. Impossible to rise…Cannot trim.”

The voice went on to mention that the fuel injection was bad and the air pump failed. Also the cooling system was bad, as was the bore capacity. Irwin said he knew before hand that the bore capacity was inadequate, but was unable to get the engineers to correct the situation. He also mentioned that the ship almost scraped the roofs at Achy and that he was guided by the railway tracks.

Both Coster and Price were certain there was no fraud involved. While the aeronautical terminology was evidential in itself and later confirmed as technically correct, the most evidential item was mention of the small town of Achy. It was so small that it could not be found on most maps and had not been mentioned in any of the newspaper stories. Yet, it was confirmed that the ship passed right over the town.

After some 45 minutes, Irwin faded out and a different voice began speaking “Here I am,” the voice said, “Arthur Conan Doyle. Now how am I going to prove it to you?” Doyle went on to talk about the difficulties in communicating and about the conditions in which he found himself – not much different than the world he had just left.

Three weeks later, Major Oliver Villiers, an air command intelligence officer who knew many of the victims of the R-101, was encouraged by a friend to visit Eileen Garrett. A sitting was arranged for October 31. Villiers went anonymously, careful not to give any indication of his military connections or his interest in the R-101 disaster. Nothing happened for the first 30 minutes and Villiers was about ready to give up when a voice was heard saying: “Irwey, Irwey – louder – Irwing, Irwin, Don’t go, please. Stay, I must speak!”

Taking notes in improvised shorthand, Villiers reported that it sounded very much like Irwin’s voice. Villiers then asked Irwin how the end had come, pointing out that the evidence showed the ship had dived, straightened out, dived again, and then crashed. “Yes, that’so,” Irwin responded. “One of the struts in the nose collapsed and caused a tear in the cover. The wind was blowing hard and it was raining. Now you see what happened. The rush of wind caused the first dive and then we straightened again and another gust surging through the hole finished us.”

Villiers asked if the electrical installation had caused the explosion. “No. Not that. It was the engine,” Irwin responded, going on to explain that the diesel engine had been popping or backfiring after crossing the channel because the oil feed was not right. “You see the pressure in some of the gas bags was accentuated by the under girders crumpling up, and since gas had been escaping, extra pressure pushed the gas out with a rush and at that moment the diesel engine backfired and ignited the escaping gas. That caused the first explosion and others followed.”

Many names and technical details that Garrett could not possibly have known were mentioned by Irwin, leaving Villiers convinced that he was actually speaking with Irwin.

Two days later, Villiers again sat with Mrs. Garrett. Uvani then described a man who was there to communicate but said he wanted Villiers to figure out who it was. He said he was 50-55, grey by the ears, used to have a moustache and wears a monocle. “Now, use your intelligence,” Uvani relayed the words of the communicator. Villiers immediately recognized him as Sir Sefton Brancker, another victim of the R-101. Brancker was the director of the British Air Ministry and was one of several dignitaries on the flight. Villiers had worked under Brancker and the expression to use his intelligence was something he had heard Brancker say many times. “Little did I think when I saw you last that we’d meet again with things so upside down,” Brancker spoke, Villiers again noting that the cadence of the voice was the one he had identified with Brancker. “No parties here, nothing in bottles. But spirits of other kinds, if you know what I mean.”

Brancker admitted that Irwin and other flight crew members wanted to postpone the flight because of the weather conditions, but he nixed the idea because Lord Thomson, British Secretary of Air, felt the honor of the country was at stake. “I felt awful,” Brancker ended. “Of course, we never had a run for our money.”

Villiers had four more sittings with Garrett and spoke with three more victims of the crash, gathering much more information about the problems that brought down the airship. He then took the information to Sir John Simon, who was presiding at the Court of Inquiry into the disaster. However, Simon said that the information would not be admissible in a court of law and therefore rejected Villiers’ report.

Primary references: The Millionth Chance by James Leasor, Reynal and Co., 1957; The Airmen Who Would Not Die by John G. Fuller, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979;

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