John Derry was thirty years old, a decorated war veteran who had flown Hawker Typhoons in the Second World War and commanded No. 182 Squadron RAF. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1945 and the Bronze Lion for his role in the liberation of the Netherlands. After the war, he became one of Britain's premier test pilots. His flight test observer, Anthony Richards, was twenty-five, a graduate member of the Royal Aeronautical Society who had worked for de Havilland since his apprenticeship. In April 1952, Richards became the first British flight test observer to exceed the speed of sound, with Derry at the controls. They were one of the most experienced test crews in the country.

Derry and Richards collected the DH.110 prototype from de Havilland's factory in Hatfield and flew it to Farnborough, beginning their display at around 3:45 p.m. The aircraft performed several passes before the catastrophic moment. As Derry straightened up and pulled into a climb, the outer section of the starboard wing failed and broke off, followed immediately by the same section of the port wing. The sudden shift in aerodynamic forces tore the aircraft apart -- cockpit section, both engines, and tailplane all separated. The entire breakup took less than one second. Subsequent investigation revealed that the wing had only 64 percent of its intended structural strength, a design flaw that had gone undetected. Derry and Richards were killed instantly, along with twenty-nine spectators on the ground. Sixty others were injured.

In a decision that seems astonishing today, the air display continued after the debris was cleared from the runway. Neville Duke took the prototype Hawker Hunter supersonic over the show later that afternoon. The response reflected a different era's relationship with risk and spectacle -- an age when aviation was still pushing boundaries that routinely claimed lives. Elizabeth II and Duncan Sandys, the Minister of Supply, sent messages of condolence. Group Captain Sidney Hughes, commandant of the Experimental Flying Department, testified that Derry had received no warning whatsoever of the impending structural failure.

The crash transformed air show safety across the United Kingdom. New regulations required jets to maintain at least 230 meters from crowds when flying straight and 450 meters during maneuvers, always at a minimum altitude of 150 meters. The DH.110 was initially grounded, but after design modifications it entered Royal Navy service as the Sea Vixen. For sixty-three years, until the 2015 Shoreham Airshow crash killed eleven people, no spectators died at a British air show -- a record directly attributable to the regulations born from the Farnborough disaster. It took sixty-nine years for the civilian casualties to be formally commemorated: on 6 September 2021, a memorial of thirty-two inscribed bricks was unveiled at the Farnborough Air Sciences Museum, one brick for each casualty and one for the airshow itself.