Bailing out of a Lancaster bomber was a challenging and dangerous process. Only Fifteen percent of shot down Lancaster crews managed to bail out compared with twenty five percent of Halifax crews.

The Two Bailout Procedures

The parachute exits on a Lancaster were the front hatch in the nose under the bomb aimers position and the main crew entry point at the rear of the fuselage on the starboard side.

Normal Method :

The rear gunner would exit from his turret. To accomplish this meant he had to retrieve his parachute from the fuselage, return to the turret, rotate it possibly by hand and then roll out backwards. Everyone else had to exit via the small (just 22 in × 26.5 in.) opening of the Front Hatch.

Wireless Operator bailout duties: send emergency signal. Clamp Key. Destroy Id Friend or Foe device. (I.F.F.) fit parachute, move aft to entrance door. Stand by to leave aircraft. Leave aircraft facing forward head first.

Emergency Method:

The Wireless Operator and Mid-Upper Gunner would exit via the main entry door. Mid-Upper Gunner: moved aft and opened entrance door. Leave aircraft diving down head first. (to avoid hitting tail assembly)
The pilot would attempt to hold the plane steady while the rest of the crew bailed out. Than employing the Automatic Controls “George” if they were still working. The main flaw of the nose escape hatch was that there no was no alternative for most of the crew, if they needed to bail out.
The main entry door, in the rear fuselage, was only practical for the gunners to use The navigator and radio operator could only reach the nose hatch after the Flight Engineer had used it, or moved further into the aircraft.
The path to the yellow hand rail down into the Bomb Aimers station and the Front Hatch were also hampered by the tight squeeze getting past the Navigators station.

There were many things getting in the way of speedy movement, especialyy at night withn the Lancaster/
There could also be the need of the Flight Engineer's to help the pilot could lose whatever control they had of a fatally damaged Lancaster, so the crew couldn't bail out anyway.

Crash Only Exits


There were three crash exits in the Lancaster bomber. These were push out panels, one in the roof of the canopy above the pilot, one in the top of the fuselage just forward of the main spar and a third in the top of the fuselage above the rear end of the main floor.

The Lancaster manuals made aware that these should not be used as parachute exits. This was because they were not considered safe, the chances of striking some part of the airframe after exiting being too high. A forth opening was part of the canopy by pushing out a panel, but this was not a safe parachute exit.
Bomber Commands own Operational Research Section concluded that it was the small size of the forward escape hatch which was a significant factor in the poor survivability rate for Lancaster crews shot down. If any improvement should have been made it would have been to this hatch. It never happened during the war.