The world’s only airworthy de Havilland DH.88 Comet, G-ACSS ‘Grosvenor House’, sustained extensive damage after a DH.88 Comet landing accident at Old Warden aerodrome in Bedfordshire on 15 August 2026, leaving the future of the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race winner in doubt.
The Shuttleworth Collection said the accident occurred at approximately 19:20 local time during its Flying Proms air show. One crew member was on board. Emergency services extracted the pilot, who was responding at the scene; the pilot was subsequently taken to hospital for assessment before being discharged. Nobody else was hurt.
How the DH.88 Comet landing accident unfolded
Eyewitnesses described G-ACSS overrunning the landing strip, braking sharply and becoming tail-heavy before nosing over and inverting, according to the Bedford Independent. The sequence is consistent with the aircraft’s long-standing reputation as a demanding type to land: short, narrow-track undercarriage and sensitive ground handling have tested pilots throughout its operational life.
The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) had not commented at the time of writing. Shuttleworth has not said whether the damage is repairable.
An irreplaceable airframe with a turbulent history
De Havilland built five DH.88s, three of them for the 1934 MacRobertson race. Two survive. G-ACSP ‘Black Magic’ has spent years under restoration, which makes G-ACSS the only airworthy example and the only one that actually won the race. Flown by Charles W. A. Scott and Tom Campbell Black, G-ACSS completed the Mildenhall-to-Melbourne course in 70 hours and 54 minutes. It was the first British aircraft to combine stressed-skin construction, a cantilever wing, retractable undercarriage, flaps, variable-pitch propellers and an enclosed cockpit in a single airframe. Experience gained from the Comet’s high-speed wooden construction later contributed to the DH.98 Mosquito, alongside that gained from the DH.91 Albatross.
The airframe’s survival to this point is itself remarkable in operational terms. Written off in Royal Air Force hands as K5084 and sold for scrap, it was rebuilt by Essex Aero, raced as ‘The Orphan’ and set records as ‘The Burberry’ before reaching the Shuttleworth Collection in 1965. Restored with support from around 50 organisations, it flew again on 17 May 1987 from Hatfield. When that airfield closed in 1994, the Comet returned to Old Warden by road, where the runway was initially too short to operate it.
This is not the first time a landing at Old Warden has grounded the aircraft for an extended period. On 28 October 2002, following a test flight for its Permit to Fly, G-ACSS bounced four times on landing before its right main landing gear collapsed on the fifth touchdown. The AAIB investigation identified high loads in the landing gear and questioned aspects of its geometry. Subsequent research found that the original legs were liable to failure under certain conditions; structural modifications were later approved and implemented. That accident kept the Comet out of service for 12 years.
Second Old Warden incident since May
The DH.88 Comet landing accident is the second incident at Old Warden since 30 May 2026, when an Avro Triplane IV replica came down during the Wings and Wheels air show. Operators of historic fleets typically suspend flying pending cause determination: the Royal Air Force adopted that approach with its Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfires and Hurricanes following recent accidents involving historic aircraft in the UK.
Given that G-ACSS is the only flying DH.88 Comet and carries a race-winning provenance that cannot be replicated, any repair programme, if one is approved, will attract close attention across the historic aviation community. Shuttleworth’s next statement on the aircraft’s condition will set the direction for what follows.
