Unpublished crash photos show end of Amy Johnson’s flight and her marriage

The upside-down lettering on the wrecked fuselage of the de Havilland Dragon, half buried in a field beside a drainage ditch on America’s east coast, symbolises not only the disastrous end of Amy Johnson’s attempt to fly non-stop to Baghdad, but also an upheaval in her personal life.

Taken by a local resident and stored in a family album, these photographs of rescue workers attending to the Yorkshire aviator and her husband in 1933 have never been published before.

Dr David Marchant, registrar at East Riding Museums, said their donation by a nephew of photographer Edna Nichols Jacobsen, was a bolt from the blue. “I have never seen any hard-copy pictures of the crash before,” he said. “These are really unusual and quite exciting.

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“We have to assume that the photographer was near the scene in Bridgeport, Connecticut.”

Rare photos of the De Havilland DH 84 Dragon aircraft 'Seafarer', piloted by Amy and Jim Mollison after it  crashed at Bridgeport, Stratford, Connecticut, USA, on 23 July, 1933. Picture: East Riding MuseumsRare photos of the De Havilland DH 84 Dragon aircraft 'Seafarer', piloted by Amy and Jim Mollison after it  crashed at Bridgeport, Stratford, Connecticut, USA, on 23 July, 1933. Picture: East Riding Museums
Rare photos of the De Havilland DH 84 Dragon aircraft 'Seafarer', piloted by Amy and Jim Mollison after it crashed at Bridgeport, Stratford, Connecticut, USA, on 23 July, 1933. Picture: East Riding Museums | Freelance

Ms Johnson’s husband, the Scottish pilot Jim Mollison, is believed to have been at the controls of their aircraft, which bore the name Seafarer, when it ran out of fuel en route to New York. Neither was badly hurt.

“There are some suggestions that he had pushed to try and keep going when he should have changed course,” Dr Marchant said. “It was clear that Amy and Jim weren’t getting on well, and you really have to read between the lines here. They were both very strong characters.

“Amy eventually went back England on her own.”

The pictures will go on display in a gallery dedicated to the Hull-born Ms Johnson at the Georgian country house of Sewerby Hall, near Bridlington, whose public opening she performed in 1936.

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Rare photos of the De Havilland DH 84 Dragon aircraft 'Seafarer', piloted by Amy and Jim Mollison after it  crashed at Bridgeport, Stratford, Connecticut, USA, on 23 July, 1933. Picture: East Riding MuseumsRare photos of the De Havilland DH 84 Dragon aircraft 'Seafarer', piloted by Amy and Jim Mollison after it  crashed at Bridgeport, Stratford, Connecticut, USA, on 23 July, 1933. Picture: East Riding Museums
Rare photos of the De Havilland DH 84 Dragon aircraft 'Seafarer', piloted by Amy and Jim Mollison after it crashed at Bridgeport, Stratford, Connecticut, USA, on 23 July, 1933. Picture: East Riding Museums | Freelance

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