Windsock
Sadly there is/was nothing remarkable about those accident figures at that time in the post WWII RAF. I don’t have the detailed breakdown for the Meteor but the numbers you quote are rather less than I could easily believe.
The total numbers of aircraft lost by the RAF are available from Kew (as indeed are the Meteor stats I am sure)
Year Aircraft lost Fatalities
1950 380 238
1951 490 280
1952 507 318
1953 483 333
1954 452 283
1955 305 182
(Sorry I could not get the columns to line up with the headings)
Grunt and Ris
The bare facts of the 18 Oct 57 Meteor accident as given in Colin Cummings’ wonderfully researched “Catalogue of RAF aircraft losses 1954-2009” are as follows:
“The aircraft had taken off from RAF West Raynham to ferry some Hunter spares to RAF Turnhouse. The pilot was given clearance for a practice single engine landing and all appeared well as it flew in the circuit at about 1000ft. It was then see to roll rapidly to port and to dive vertically into the ground”
Again I find nothing unusual about such a report at that time.
To get a feel for things in that period you might be interested to know that the RAF laid on a flypast at Odiham on 15 July 52 to mark the Coronation of the Queen. 641 aircraft flew past her dais in 27 minutes and included 276 Meteors as well as 25 other types. On the ground there was a static display of another 320 aircraft.