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(03/02/26)
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Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer
Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2026 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
"Harrier Down!"
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The Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.3s jet fighters had fundamentally reshaped how the RAF defended Belize in the early 1980s. Because of their V/STOL capability (Vertical Short Takeoff and Landing), they needed no landing strip. They could nestle into small jungle clearings throughout the country, Hard-to-track and hard-to-target. Their physical presence alone—iconic, loud, rising vertically from the bush like a malevolent bird-of-prey—had an outsized psychological impact on anyone below. With the terrifying boom, flying at just under Mach 1, at about 600 MPH, it was gratifying to know that they were on our side.
On Tuesday, July 14th, 1981, one of the Harriers crashed. I know, because I was there.
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Just as the unnamed pilot who filed the official Accident Report (below) was an eye-witness to the event, I had been outdoors at that very moment, visiting a friend who lived near Seven Mile on the Mountain Pine Ridge Road. I had heard the enormous explosion, and turned quickly to witness the ensuing ball of fire, and column of thick black smoke.
Narrative: (Mission Companion Pilot’s Official Accident Report)
During recovery from a steep dive following a simulated rocket attack on Army trucks in Belize, the aircraft struck the tops of trees in a flat attitude five miles south of Georgeville and crashed. The subsequent RAF/MoD Board of Inquiry attributed the cause of the crash as being due to tail-plane linkage disconnected, and control lost.
The pilot did not eject and was killed. Pilot later named as Flt Lt John Clark, who was on detachment from 4 Sqn at Gütersloh.
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I was a witness to this accident, being airborne approximately 1,500m to the North of the crash site and observing from about 2,000’ AGL on an easterly heading at the time of the crash.
John and I were tasked with a Forward Air Control (FAC) exercise with “Rubber Duck” (a well-known British Army Major FAC) to the SW of Belize International Airport (BIAP). I had the first “slot” with John following some 10 or 15 minutes later.
The FAC tasked me with a rocket (68mm SNEB) attack on a 3-vehicle convoy of vehicle arranged on a north-south track between two hills, the taller to the east of the road and the lower to the west; both covered in jungle forest. The target was cunningly hidden under jungle foliage. The FAC required a southerly attack heading, from which direction, the target was obscured until virtually overhead. I successfully re-attacked from the south on a northerly heading.
Having cleared from the FAC, I watched John have exactly the same trouble seeing the target on his first attack and watched him climb steeply to the south and east and tip-in from what I assessed to be 8,000’ – 9,000’— in what I assumed was a 30-degree dive rocket, or bomb attack, on a westerly heading i.e. tangentially to the track on which the targets lay. John had recently completed the Harrier QWI course (Qualified Weapons Instructor) and was a keen advocate of steep-angle attacks to avoid the perceived threat of small-arms fire.
The recovery from this dive attack was aggressive and immediate, but commenced too late, and too low with marked condensation observed on the upper surface of the wings. The aircraft struck the top of the western hill, just below the top, with marked incidence, a slowing rate of descent, and a slight bank to starboard. The aircraft immediately broke up in flames spreading across the top of the hill and down the western side of it.
I was later sent out to the crash site to try and identify and recover various sensitive items, but found that the wreckage was spread over several hundred meters in secondary jungle and scrub. The point of impact had occurred very close to the top of the hill; for want of a few more feet and he might well have escaped.
The Board of Inquiry DID NOT find the accident attributable to a disconnected tail-plane PFCU (Powered Flying Control Unit) although, co-incidentally, one member of the BOI had exactly that problem occur to him over the north German plain which almost cost him his life a few weeks later. The recovery from the dive attack appeared to me to have been commenced too low and too late in the hot, humid, and high conditions. A good man and a terrible waste.
During recovery from a steep dive following a simulated rocket attack on Army trucks in Belize, the aircraft struck the tops of trees in a flat attitude five miles south of Georgeville and crashed. The subsequent RAF/MoD Board of Inquiry attributed the cause of the crash as being due to tail-plane linkage disconnected, and control lost.
The pilot did not eject and was killed. Pilot later named as Flt Lt John Clark, who was on detachment from 4 Sqn at Gütersloh.
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I was a witness to this accident, being airborne approximately 1,500m to the North of the crash site and observing from about 2,000’ AGL on an easterly heading at the time of the crash.
John and I were tasked with a Forward Air Control (FAC) exercise with “Rubber Duck” (a well-known British Army Major FAC) to the SW of Belize International Airport (BIAP). I had the first “slot” with John following some 10 or 15 minutes later.
The FAC tasked me with a rocket (68mm SNEB) attack on a 3-vehicle convoy of vehicle arranged on a north-south track between two hills, the taller to the east of the road and the lower to the west; both covered in jungle forest. The target was cunningly hidden under jungle foliage. The FAC required a southerly attack heading, from which direction, the target was obscured until virtually overhead. I successfully re-attacked from the south on a northerly heading.
Having cleared from the FAC, I watched John have exactly the same trouble seeing the target on his first attack and watched him climb steeply to the south and east and tip-in from what I assessed to be 8,000’ – 9,000’— in what I assumed was a 30-degree dive rocket, or bomb attack, on a westerly heading i.e. tangentially to the track on which the targets lay. John had recently completed the Harrier QWI course (Qualified Weapons Instructor) and was a keen advocate of steep-angle attacks to avoid the perceived threat of small-arms fire.
The recovery from this dive attack was aggressive and immediate, but commenced too late, and too low with marked condensation observed on the upper surface of the wings. The aircraft struck the top of the western hill, just below the top, with marked incidence, a slowing rate of descent, and a slight bank to starboard. The aircraft immediately broke up in flames spreading across the top of the hill and down the western side of it.
I was later sent out to the crash site to try and identify and recover various sensitive items, but found that the wreckage was spread over several hundred meters in secondary jungle and scrub. The point of impact had occurred very close to the top of the hill; for want of a few more feet and he might well have escaped.
The Board of Inquiry DID NOT find the accident attributable to a disconnected tail-plane PFCU (Powered Flying Control Unit) although, co-incidentally, one member of the BOI had exactly that problem occur to him over the north German plain which almost cost him his life a few weeks later. The recovery from the dive attack appeared to me to have been commenced too low and too late in the hot, humid, and high conditions. A good man and a terrible waste.
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Because the JP‑4 jet fuel was extremely light and volatile, much of it atomized and burned on impact. But, in this case, a significant portion also saturated the oxygenated soil of the Mountain Pine Ridge—driving deep into the sandy, dry, resin‑rich pine needles, and pockets of peat‑like organic material. This, combined with various aircraft materials: magnesium alloys, rubber, wiring insulation, composite panels, hydraulic fluids, lubricants, and plastics, soaked into the ground—the char, melt, and smolder behaving like a slow-burning wick. One the black smoke subsided, the Harrier’s wreckage would emit a thin, blue-gray wispy smoke that would persist for almost three weeks.
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On my next visit to Airport Camp, only a few days later, I found my RAF officer clients, now my friends, wracked with grief. One of them confided in me with a singular gruesome detail that had never be publicly released. He had been one of those officers assigned to pick through the wreckage for the “sensitive items” mentioned in the above report.
"...I found John's boot,” he said, pausing. A single tear escaped his eye.
“Unfortunately, his foot was still in it."
"...I found John's boot,” he said, pausing. A single tear escaped his eye.
“Unfortunately, his foot was still in it."