Kirkcudbright. At 10.53 on the morn- ing of the 3rd of February, 1961, the honorary secretary was informed by the police that a fighter aircraft had crashed in the vicinity of Blackshaw Flats in the area of Southerness. It had apparently disintegrated in mid-air. A moderate north-west wind was blowing with a slight sea, and the tide was flooding. At 11.6 the life-boat /. B Couper of Glasgow was launched and began a long search in the shallows of Solway Firth. Pieces of wreckage were found and handed over to a Royal Air Force launch. There was no trace of the pilot's body. The life- boat returned to her station at eleven o'clock..