Fifty-six seconds. That is how long Volcán MK356 had been airborne on the afternoon of 25 May 2024 before it came down in a field near RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, killing its pilot, Squadron Leader Mark Long of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
On 1 October 2026, the Ministry of Defence published the Service Inquiry report into the crash. Its central finding is almost unbearably mundane: a piece of debris in the carburettor, which chemical analysis showed had been there for decades, starved the 80-year-old fighter's Merlin engine of fuel just after take-off.
The report, which runs to 26 safety recommendations, also found that the paperwork meant to keep the aircraft safe was itself part of the problem.
Datos rápidos
- Aeronave: Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk IXe, serial MK356, built in March 1944
- Operador: RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF)
- Piloto: Squadron Leader Mark Long, 43, killed
- Fecha: 25 May 2024, 56 seconds after take-off from RAF Coningsby
- Motor: Rolls-Royce Merlin 66
- Causa: Debris in the carburettor "very likely" caused fuel starvation and loss of thrust
- Contributing factor: Contradictory maintenance publications for the carburettor
- Report: MoD Service Inquiry, published 1 October 2026, with 26 recommendations
An 80-year-old fighter, 56 seconds after take-off
MK356 was one of the most historically important aircraft in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Built in March 1944 with a Merlin 66 engine optimised for low altitude, it was allocated to the Royal Canadian Air Force's No. 144 Wing and flew fighter sweeps over occupied France in the weeks before D-Day.
After the war it spent decades as a gate guardian at RAF Hawkinge and RAF Locking before being recovered in 1992 and restored to fly with the BBMF. From 2017 it wore the desert colours of No. 92 Squadron in Tunisia in 1943, the scheme it carried on its final flight.
On 25 May 2024, Mark Long took off from Coningsby for a display. The Service Inquiry found that the engine lost the thrust needed to maintain powered flight less than a minute later. The Spitfire came down in a field near the base, and Long, a 43-year-old former Harrier and Typhoon pilot in his fourth season with the BBMF, was killed.
Sky News report from May 2024, as Squadron Leader Mark Long was named as the pilot killed in the crash near RAF Coningsby.
What the inquiry found
According to reporting on the report by the BBC, FlightGlobal and The Telegraph, investigators concluded that debris inside the carburettor was "very likely" the cause. It restricted the flow of fuel to the engine, producing "a loss of thrust required to maintain powered flight".
The most striking detail came from chemical analysis of the debris. It showed the material "had been present for decades". In other words, the problem had been sitting inside the fuel system long before MK356's final season, undetected through years of maintenance.
That was the contributing factor that will matter most to anyone who maintains historic aircraft. The inquiry found that conflicting manuals and weak document control left room for doubt about how the carburettor should be serviced. Its 26 recommendations include better maintenance records, a review of cockpit protection and improved emergency training.
The report also identified the Spitfire's cockpit design and restraint system as aggravating factors in the pilot's injuries. But it acknowledged that structural changes to protect the pilot would compromise the aircraft's historic authenticity and could even affect its airworthiness, the dilemma at the heart of flying any 80-year-old warbird.
Remembering Mark Long
Long earned his wings in 2004, flew the Harrier GR7 and GR9 and the Eurofighter Typhoon, spent a decade as an instructor on No. 29 Squadron and was the RAF's Typhoon display pilot in 2016. He lived in Lincolnshire with his wife and two daughters.
The BBMF returned to the air after the crash, and in July 2024 its Spitfire TE311 was repainted on one side with the code L-NG and Long's name under the cockpit in his memory. His commanding officer, Squadron Leader Mark Sugden, said he would remain "the best boss that BBMF never had".
The inquiry describes its recommendations as robust, saying they "should minimise the likelihood of a recurrence or similar tragedy". For the people who keep these aircraft flying, the lesson is uncomfortable: the oldest threat in the fuel system was a fragment nobody knew was there.
MK356 on its first Spitfire Mk IX sortie of the 2024 season at RAF Coningsby, filmed early in the 2024 display season.
Sources: UK Ministry of Defence Service Inquiry report, BBC News, FlightGlobal, The Telegraph, Royal Air Force, Wikipedia
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