VX770 was the senior member of the Vulcan family, the original prototype that had first flown in 1952. It was a research aircraft, not an operational bomber, and it had spent its career being re-engined every few years as Britain's jet manufacturers tested new powerplants. It began life with Rolls-Royce Avon engines, was later fitted with Armstrong Siddeley Sapphires, and by September 1958 was carrying a set of Rolls-Royce Conway turbofans for evaluation. On the morning of the accident, VX770 took off from the Rolls-Royce airfield at Hucknall to test the Conways in flight. Somewhere along the way the test crew agreed to detour south-east to Syerston and put in an appearance at the airshow. The four men aboard included a flight test engineer from Avro, the manufacturer. They were not a display team. They were engineers borrowing a few minutes of the schedule to show the crowd what the new engines sounded like.

The display flight began with a low run along runway 07, then a starboard climbing roll, the kind of manoeuvre that gives a heavy bomber a moment of grace and gives a crowd something to remember. During the roll the starboard wing began to disintegrate. The main spar, the long structural beam that runs through the wing and carries the entire flight load, collapsed inward. Within seconds the wing was on fire and the Vulcan was diving toward the airfield. There was no recovery and no ejection. The aircraft struck the ground close to a controllers' caravan, killing the three men inside. Three more servicemen sheltering in an ambulance were injured by flying debris. The Board of Inquiry concluded that the crew had exceeded the prototype's briefed speed and turning rate limits in performing the display. The Technical Officer suspected fatigue failure in the front bottom wing attachment, possibly aggravated by vibration from the high-flow Conway engines.

The official inquiry was not the end of the matter. Avro's chief test pilot, Tony Blackman, argued later that the truth was more complicated and less comfortable. Blackman believed VX770 had probably suffered undetected damage during earlier flights, possibly during what he described as unofficial roll-and-loop displays by Rolls-Royce test pilots who were not supposed to be aerobatting the airframe at all. At Avro, the inspection routine after every aerobatic flight included sending an exceptionally small technician inside the wing to look for stress damage at the leading edges and nose ribs, problems Avro had already observed in another prototype. Rolls-Royce, Blackman thought, may simply not have known the inspection was needed. The Royal Aircraft Establishment carried out its own structural analysis of the wreckage in April 1960, but the report has never been found in the public record. The full story, if anyone ever knew it, was not preserved.

Air shows in 1958 were not safety-conscious affairs by later standards. Spectators stood close to the line. Display crews flew with confidence rather than choreography. VX770 was the first Vulcan ever built, and the first prototype of any production aircraft tends to carry small, accumulated stresses that the production run does not. The Vulcan itself went on. The operational Mark 1 and Mark 2 aircraft served in the V-bomber force through the Cold War, flew the longest combat mission in RAF history during the 1982 Falklands War, and retired with one airframe, XH558, kept flying for the public until 2015. But VX770 was the family's eldest son, and the seven people killed at Syerston on Battle of Britain Day 1958 were a reminder that even the aircraft that win wars are tested first by people willing to risk being there when something goes wrong. The site is unmarked. The runway is still in use by gliders.