De Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen

The de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen was a British twin-engined, twin-boom, two-seat carrier-based fighter for fleet air defence, flown by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm from the 1950s to the early 1970s. De Havilland designed it at Hatfield in the late 1940s, building on its first-generation jet fighters, and the first prototype flew on 26 September 1951 with John Cunningham at the controls. That prototype broke up during a display at the 1952 Farnborough Airshow, killing 31 people including the crew, and the investigation traced the failure to the wing leading edge. After a redesign the first true production Sea Vixen flew in 1957, with the FAW.2 following in 1962. It was the first British two-seat combat aircraft to go supersonic, though not in level flight, saw action over Tanganyika and during the Aden Emergency, and was retired in 1972 in favour of the Phantom.