When a Rogue Jet Took Over London
By: Calin Aneculaesei
Tags: United Kingdom, Army, Politics, London, History

Hawker Hunter Jet piloted flying through Tower Bridge, illustration curtesy of ITV

The year of 1968 some of the greatest changes to the United Kingdom’s military force. Due to the new Labour government, many sectors of the armed forces had their funding cut. The most impacted sector was the RAF as the government shifted from manned aircraft to unmanned rockets and drones. This coincides very badly with the 50th anniversary of their funding. As a result, much unrest was caused in the RAF rank and file, which reached a crescendo when the government denied the RAF the funds to host the 50th-anniversary fly over and parade.

Lieutenant Alan Pollock

On the 5th April 1968, Lieutenant Alan Pollock decided that he would take matters into his own hands and celebrate the anniversary in a more special way than the usual flyovers. He took off, unauthorised, from the soon-to-be-closed airbase in Essex called RAF Tangmere and moved towards London. Immediately after takeoff, he turned off his radio and not listen to any radio calls from any control towers, this allowed him to fully concentrate on the plan he had in mind. He would go on to do multiple low flies passes over soon-to-be-closed air bases and multiple Hawker Hunter factories in protest of the pay cuts being received by the RAF. In London Pollock would perform multiple very low passes over the parliament building which highlighted his skill as a pilot due to flying that low being very dangerous, especially in a jet aircraft. To end his display of protest Pollock performed the ultimate show of skill. He initially planned to fly just over the Tower Bridge then return to RAF West Raynham in Norfolk but he made a split second decision to fly under the top span of the Tower Bridge. He would later write this about the event:

“Until this very instant I’d had absolutely no idea that, of course, Tower Bridge would be there. It was easy enough to fly over it, but the idea of flying through the spans suddenly struck me. I had just ten seconds to grapple with the seductive proposition which few ground attack pilots of any nationality could have resisted. My brain started racing to reach a decision. Years of fast low-level strike flying made the decision simple.” — Lieutenant Alan Pollock

After this maneuver, which still stands in the record books as the only time a jet aircraft has been flown under the span of Tower Bridge, the “beat up” (fly at a low level) some more airfields and land at RAF West Raynham in Norfolk where he was formally arrested. Due to the political instability caused by the cuts to the RAF Pollock’s dismissal was covered up as due to “medical problems” which allowed him to skip a court-martial in turn of him keeping silent about the situation, skipping some embarrassment for the government.

Conclusion

This teaches us a great deal about leadership. Bad leadership here led to disdain among the ranks actually materialising and nearly costing the ruling positions of a lot of people in the party. Precautions should’ve been taken to allow such a significant anniversary of one of the most crucial air forces in the world to happen. This is a perfect case study for anyone who wants to know anything about leadership on how nationalism bred in the army will impact your country and how to avoid such revolts in protest of your power to materialise.