Just to confirm it happened at Middleton St George, not Driffield.

Meteor Phantom Dive
 

Probably caused by Fatigue failure in the tail plane, which had two spars. The whole assembly was tested for strength, but they had not accounted for a halving in the components strength when the skin would rip starting at rivet holes There's a paper in the Cranfield archive C.P No. 88 (14,192) A.R.C. Technical Report from May 1951, that details the errors the designers made when calculating the stresses on this component,

Meteor accidents - 1953
 

Flatus Veteranus: What was the Christian name of Master Pilot Morton, whom I believe flew with your Meteor team?

Safe Life to Fail Safe
 

The change of design strategy from Safe Life to Fail Safe is the other probable reason for the reduction in fatalities that reach a peak in '52 '53. at 330+ fatalities, which fell to 42 deaths in 1960. The Americans were the first to see the problem with Safe - Life because it could not guarantee safety in a catastrophic failure. All U.K A/c designed after '56 are 'Fail Safe' See this article from '56 which is a report about a talk given to RAeS by a chief engineer from Lockheed, he delivers a 'coup de grace' to the Safe Life strategy 1956 | 0396 | Flight Archive 1956 | 0397 | Flight Archive 1956 | 0398 | Flight Archive 1956 | 0399 | Flight Archive The Valiant was Safe Life with an airframe made from DTD683 which could and did fail catestrophically as in XD864 and probably a few others. The Shackleton and Argosy were two others that were potentially compromised in this way, but they unlike the Valiant were redesigned and rebuilt to fail safe. I have no information about what happened to the Meteor, but it would have been designed to safe-life.

Flying Officer Norman, in 1951, was reported to have crashed his Meatbox, bounced off his own car and then into his own room, where he sadly met his end, following a failed single engined roller landing. He is reputed to still be occupying the old Officers' mess (now hotel) at RAF Middleton St. George. Spend the night there and he might come and pin you down in your bed, just like he supposedly was by falling masonry :ooh:

Meteor accidents.
 

K.Whyjelly was so right in his contribution, back in 2007.

>in the vain hope of getting a scarified young girl to seek protection in the strong manly arms of the hunky flightcrew!!!<

He referred, along with others, to the kindly apparition forced to spend his days terrifying any new cabin staff who used his old room in the west wing of the OM, now the St George Hotel.

I actually completed my Vampire night flying at M.St.G, whilst going through FTS at Linton in about October, 1962.

I was then subsequently detached regularly to Durham TeesValley Intergalactic Spaceport, (or MME to the cognicenti) whilst with an airline ( they paid more !), in the late 70s/early 80s.

On numerous occasions I have actually seen tears from female cabin crew when they found they couldn't have their allocated room changed and, yes, strong manly arms were often to be found around shuddering shoulders in efforts to console said stricken maidens !!
My, it sometimes took an awful lot of consolation......................

One of the "hunky flightcrew" back in such times was an ex-Meteor, then Sabre, driver called Barney Concannon.

Barney's claim to fame was that, after retiring from flying 707s and, in those days, DC9s, he wrote a novel.
I remember discussing this ambition in the bar, long before he actually wrote it and also how much time he actually spent researching the Meteor accident.

The book was published in 2001, by The Writers Cooperative, and was entitled "Black Billy".

It was an excellent read about the glory days of airline operation and, specifically, the tortured efforts of Black Billy (said ghost) to rid himself of his eternal travails.

Wonder if he's still there ?? ;) ;) ;)

Teesside ghost
 

I wrote two articles in 'The Log' regarding the demise of F/O Norman. They can be read on my website: www.freewebs.com/barne.

The book 'Black Billy' is fiction inspired by my research into the above accident. It is now out of print but I can supply on CD or floppy in MS Word for cost of postage.

Still alive and kicking, but not flying.

Teesside ghost
 

See Two articles published in 'The Log' re F/O Norman's accident on my website: www.freewebs.com/barne

1953 meteor crashes
 

hi warmtoast. you seem to be well up on meteor crashes . i have a puzzle to resolve. during sept 53 i was a bomb armourer at coningsby. some time during that period we had a visit by a 74 meteor sqdn . now all the articles ive seen and also threads to 74 sqdns bob cossey indicat that a meteor crashed while doing a fast low level run b,o,b day due to mechanicle failure . now unless there were two incidents that isnt what happened. we were working in the bomb dump that day and witnessed the whole event. a meteor took off on the main runway Rt to lft at about 60 feet or so he did a 180 flip, at the far end he did a verticle climb to a thousand feet or so then performed a falling leaf manouver at the bottom of which he levelled off to the left .he was so low at that point that he hit a 6ft raised dyke and exploded sending the cockpit and pilot forward like a rocket 2-300 ft also killing a number of cows. some of us were posted to guard the wreck .we understood the pilot was a sqdn/ ldr . the pilot bob cossey mentioned and in some reports said it was a fl/of ward . i still have a lens from the planes camera which was laying in the field..can you throw any light on this event . im contacting the local rag for archive info. best wishes

patrickoleary

Sorry I can't help as I know no more than as reported in the press at the time (my post number 1 above).

Meteor Mid-Air
 

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the airborne collision in 1951 when two Meteor Mk 8s of 65 from Linton collided at 30,000ft. One pilot died, but the other, Sgt Bill Tollit ejected from an inverted spinning aircraft and landed in a field near Strubby still strapped in his seat minus gloves and mask which had been ripped off during the ejection, his fingers were frozen so that he could not release himself from the seat , he pulled the D-ring before passing into unconciousness. The chute had deployed from between his legs because the front of the seat had been damaged by the explosion allowing the chute to stream out between his legs, He suffered a fractured skull and frostbitten fingers.

Bill went on to fly for the R.C.A.F. in their F86 display team.
I knew him when he was at Cambrian on Viscounts in the late sixties, but sadly, the Big C got him and he died at an early age.

If my memory serves me correctly, his story was featured in a book called "Into the Silk" by Ian Mackersley.

Does anyone have information of a Biggin Hill Mark 8 which crashed in either 55 or 56? The pilot was F/O Coulston {spelling?} ejected but died from injuries in hospital, he had just been punished for low flying in a Vampire around the South coast of England, I belive this was his first jet flight since being given a rocket by the board, he was in charge of the RAF gliding club on the base, he was kind enough to bend the rules and let me fly with them although I was not in the RAF.The loss rate at the peak of the Cold War was pretty bad in Canada as well, one course I was on we lost eleven out of fourteen in two years, the combination of eighteen year old pilots, and the early jets {CF100s} and our climate made for some interesting times!

Hi Clunkdriver

The chap in question is Fg Off Roger Thomas COULSTON and h crashed in Meteor F8 of 41 sqn on 13 Oct 56. Supposed to be engine failure followed by an unsuccessful abandonment

Hope this helps.

O-D

patrickoleary: Broken Wings details all the major accidents of this period and the only one that happened at Coningsby in 1953 was that which was described in the newspaper clipping in post#1, and in my #4 post.

Neither of these bear any resemblance to the accident you describe, so I am at a loss to understand when or where you saw what you describe.

Meteor accident Coningsby Sept 1953
 

This one seems to fit the bill.

19.09.53 WA836 Meteor F8 of 74 Sqn. Broke up during a high speed run at RAF Coningsby Battle of Britain display killing the pilot. The cause was attributed to a double main plane failure as a result of previous overstressing if the aircraft.
Flying Officer PR Ward.

QP

Press cutting about this event below. I was at Biggin Hill and according to my records 41 Sqn converted to Hunters from August 1955 onwards so I'm rather surprised that they were still flying Meteors 15-months later.


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...4thOct1956.jpg

Addendum

Rectory Lane, Foots Cray.
Looks as though the pilot chose the only large open space around in which to crash.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...oogleImage.jpg

They probably kept one or two for banner towing.

Winston and Meatbox?
 

Is there any truth to the story I heard many, many years ago as an Air Scout? Winston Churchill as Prime Minister (for the second time) is said to have flown in a two seat Meteor (T20?). During his preglight briefing, the pilot is reported to have said;

"Mr. Prime Minister, if I say 'Eject, Eject' and you say; 'Pardon?' - You are talking to yourself!"

Roger.

WSC & Meteors
 

I didn't think any of the two seat British Meteors had ejection seats - certainly not fitted to the T7 or the NF11 to 14.

The 'you'll be talking to yourself' story is one of those tales often recounted. I've heard it used in a briefing for a passenger being flown in a JP.

The story which is true, as it is formally recorded, was Churchill showing concern as to the number of jet pilots being killed in fighters and the response from the then Air Minister was to reassure Churchill that there was nothing to be concerned about as these were the 'normal' figures. This was end 1952 or 53. There were about 500 crashes in both those years (507/483) and 318 (1952) and 333 (1953) fatalities.

This http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...tatistics.html was the thread a few years back about the dreadful accident rates (apologies if this has been posted earlier in this thread - if so, I couldn't find it).