Vulcan bomber comes off the runway during a hot taxi run at Wellesbourne airfield

On Friday 16th September a Vulcan Bomber with serial XM655, ran off the runway at an airfield in Warwickshire, narrowly avoiding a local road.

Although not airworthy, the heritage aircraft was scheduled to perform a taxi run down the runway on Sunday 18th September, an event which now has been cancelled as advised by the organisers due to ongoing efforts to recover the aircraft from the soil.

Luckily the aircraft is largely undamaged but a lot of inspection work needs to be carried out.

In an attempt to reduce uninformed speculation, a statement on the official facebook page of the Avro Vulcan XM655 has been issued.

Footage posted to Twitter shows XM655 overshooting the end of Runway 36 while the aircraft appears to brake furiously to avoid a head-on collision with traffic on the B4086. Images taken after the incident occurred, both on the ground and from above, show just how close the Vulcan came to crashing into the road, with potentially tragic results. 

The Vulcan, tail numbered XM655, is one of the few remaining examples still permitted to complete ‘high-speed taxi’ runs and is maintained by the XM655 Preservation Society at Wellesbourne.