Obituary of Johnny Squier BAC Test Pilot.

[johnhowe]

John William Copous Squier was born on the 18th, March, 1920 at Chelmsford was educated by a private tutor, since his
parents thought he was a delicate child. Anxious to prove them wrong, he drove the farm tractor as a boy, worked in a local garage and joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in early 1939 to train as a pilot.

Johnny Squier pulled of what has been described as one of the most remarkable escapes from an aircraft, when he was forced to eject from his Lightning Fighter in 1959.

Squier, a senior test pilot with the English Electric Company based at Warton in Lancashire, took off in the prototype two seat version on the supersonic lightning on the 1st Ocotober.1959.

Flying eight miles high,he was in radio contact with ground control and was being tracked on radar when the operator saw the blip of his aircraft disappear from his screen 15 miles off Bees head in Cumberland - a sailor saw an aircraft crash into the Irish Sea at the same time. A full-scale air and sea search was launched, but this was hampered by low cloud, very poor
visibilty and a 20 foot swell.

Squier had been flying at more than 1000 mph when the aircraft suffered structural failure, and he was forced to abandon
the lightning; using the martin baker ejector seat , he was the first British Pilot to eject at more than the speed of sound.
It took Squier a few months to recover but the following May he was cleared to fly again and he resumed as chief production
test pilot.

In 1940 he was shot down flying Spitfires in the Battle Of Britain and after recovering from injuries served the rest of the war
as a test pilot. He joined English Electric and after completion of test pilot duties he worked on the TSR 2 and the Jaguar
project. Johnny Squier, retired in December 1983. Johnny Squier was 85 years old when he died.