The accident occurred during a test flight of the first prototype BAC One-Eleven (registration G-ASHG) which had taken off from Wisley Airfield with seven crew on board, captained by Mike Lithgow.

The aircraft was on its fifth test flight to assess stability and handling characteristics during the approach to—and recovery from—a stall with the centre of gravity in varying positions.

From an altitude of 16,000 feet (4,900 m) and with the flaps extended 8°, the aircraft entered a stable stall and descended at a high rate in a horizontal attitude, eventually striking the ground with very little forward speed.

The aircraft broke up on impact at Cratt Hill, near Chicklade, a small village in southern Wiltshire and caught fire, killing all seven crew on board.

[5] The memorial bears a quotation from the annotation of the 1817 edition of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: '...and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them and is their appointed rest and their native country.