On 9 November 1971, a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

Lockheed Hercules C.1 crashed into the sea off the coast of

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...

by Meloria shoal, Italy, killing all 46 passengers and 6 crew. At the time it was described by Italian officials as the worst military air disaster in Italy in peacetime.

Crash

The Hercules

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

''XV216'', from

RAF Lyneham Royal Air Force Lyneham otherwise known as RAF Lyneham was a Royal Air Force station located northeast of Chippenham, Wiltshire, and southwest of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The station was the home of all the Lockheed C-130 Hercules transpo ...

in Wiltshire, was due to carry out an early morning parachute drop at

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

, Sardinia, as part of a large-scale joint training exercise called ''Coldstream''. Ten aircraft were to be involved; nine Hercules and one

Hawker Siddeley Andover The Hawker Siddeley HS 780 Andover is a twin-engined turboprop military transport aircraft produced by Hawker Siddeley for the Royal Air Force (RAF), developed from the Avro-designed HS 748 airliner. The Andover was named after the Avro Ando ...

. Their order of takeoff was marked by a serial number, chalked onto the fuselage of each aircraft. The Hercules known as ''Chalk 4'' was the fourth of the 10 aircraft due to depart at fifteen-minute intervals from San Giusto military airport in Pisa, Italy. The aircraft crashed near the Meloria rocks, four miles west of Livorno. At Pisa, the stream take-off was cancelled, another four aircraft had followed ''XV216'' into the air but the last two were prevented from departing. All 52 on board were killed, they included five British aircrew from 24 Squadron, a British parachute jumping instructor from No. 1 Parachute Training School at

RAF Abingdon Royal Air Force Abingdon, or more simply RAF Abingdon, is a former Royal Air Force station near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. It is now known as Dalton Barracks and is used by the Royal Logistic Corps. History In 1925, a plan was approved to bui ...

and 46 Italian paratroopers from the

Folgore Parachute Brigade Folgore is the Italian word for ''lightning''. It may refer to: Military * Macchi C.202 ''Folgore'', an Italian fighter of World War II * Breda Folgore, an Italian anti-armor weapon * Traditional name for paratroopers units of the Italian Army * ...

Recovery

It was at first difficult to find the wreckage due to a persistent wind and low clouds. The wreckage was found lying in of water, although small fragments had already been recovered, the salvage operation, which was hindered by the bad weather, was led by the

Italian Navy The Italian Navy (; abbreviated as MM) is one of the four branches of Italian Armed Forces and was formed in 1946 from what remained of the ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy) after World War II. , the Italian Navy had a strength of 30,923 active per ...

. The cause of the accident was not found.Halley 1999, p. 225

Memorial

Livorno monumento Caduti della Meloria 03

A memorial plaque was erected in Livorno in 2003 to commemorate the accident. On 21 November 2006, a memorial service was held in Pisa, attended by a delegation from No. 24 Squadron, current operators of the C-130J Hercules, and relatives of the lost crew members.

Notes

:I: Five of the ten aircraft were from the Royal Air Force.

References

Sources

* * *Falciglia, Aldo (November/December 2011). "Gesso quattro non-risponde" – La sciagura alle secche della Meloria. Folgore (Associazione Nazionale Paracadutisti d'Italia) (Nos. 11–12) {{DEFAULTSORT:RAF Hercules crash Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971 Aviation accidents and incidents in Italy 1971 in Italy Accidents and incidents involving the Lockheed C-130 Hercules Accidents and incidents involving Royal Air Force aircraft November 1971 in Europe RAF Hercules crash