Airline worker recalls Southampton’s worst air disaster
When the Aquila Airways flying boat fell out of the night sky in 1957, the airline's 21‑year‑old secretary Lola Soutter wasn’t at her desk in Southampton, but at a London hotel, watching the horror unfold on television.
Aware that her friends and colleagues were on the plane, she described the “horrific feeling” of not knowing whether they were dead or alive.
Now 90 years old, Lola told the Daily Echo: “It was absolutely horrific. I was in tears and just couldn’t believe it.”
Lola Soutter with her colleagues (Image: Submitted)
Lola said she had been closest to a woman around her own age, Angela Kitcher, who did not survive the crash on November 15, 1957.
She said: “Angela worked in the same office as me, and this was her first trip as an air hostess.
"I had this faux fur coat, which was the thing to wear back then, and she asked me to try it on.
"I told her I was getting the train up to London, but that she could try it on when we got back on Monday.
"She never got to try on the coat and that was the last time I saw her.”
The Aquila flying boat had taken off from Southampton Water with 58 people on board.
Nine minutes after taking off at 10.54pm, the pilot reported engine trouble and prepared to turn back.
An archive photo shows the scale of the disaster. Image: County Press
Moments later, the aircraft crashed into a disused chalk pit on the side of Shalcombe Down, on the Isle of Wight.
Forty‑five passengers and eight crew members, including three honeymooning couples, died as 2,000 gallons of aviation fuel ignited on impact.
Lola said she remembered the aftermath of the crash, including colleagues returning items recovered from the wreckage to the office.
“They brought back things that had been burnt like their passports and things they found – there wasn’t a lot but they put it in the safe,” Lola said.
“I remember that being horrendous.”
Lola said she recalls seeing one of the survivors - a colleague based in London - arrive at the office with “terrible burns.”
She added: “He was so badly burnt but he was in the tail, which broke off and they were the only ones who survived. He was very badly injured, but he did recover."
Lola Soutter winning award at the beauty contest (Image: Submitted)
Despite the horrors of that November night, Lola looks back on her time at Aquila Airways with fondness.
A few months before the crash, she and some colleagues had been entered into a beauty contest, where she placed third.
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