On July 18, after a full day working at the War Office, Churchill and [Colonel Jack] Scott drove to Croydon aerodrome for one of their routine traiing flights. The aeroplane had dual controls. As usual, Churchill took the machine off the ground himself, but when he had risen to seventy or eighty feet the aeroplane began to lose speed and to fall. Scott took over the controls but could do nothing...
... The aeroplane struck the ground. Churchill was thrown forward but his safety belt held him; it broke only when the force of the crash was over. Streams of petrol vapour rushed past him from the engine, but in the few seconds before the aeroplane hit the ground, Scott had managed to switch off the engine, preventing an explosion.