Date:	Thursday 24 April 1952
Time:	morning
Type:	Gloster Meteor T Mk 7
Owner/operator:	205 AFS RAF
Registration:	WA665
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Morton Palms Farm, Yarm Road, Dinsdale, County Durham -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Initial climb
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Middleton St. George, Co. Durham
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor T.Mk.7 WA665, 205 AFS, RAF: Written off (destroyed) 24 April 1952: Broke up in flight and dived out of clouds into the ground at Morton Palms Farm, Dinsdale, County Durham. (Morton Palms, is a township in Houghton-le-Skerne parish, Durham; near the Stockton railway, 3¼ miles E of Darlington). Both crew were killed.

The aircraft took off and entered cloud during the initial climb out from RAF Middleton St. George, County Durham. After two and a half minutes after take off the Meteor was seen to dive out of the clouds at an angle of about 50 degrees, and begin to disintegrate in flight. The break up in flight is through to have been caused by high "G" loadings on the airframe, applied by the pilot in an attempt to recover from the dive. However, the original reason why the aircraft was diving into the ground at a 50 degree angle was never discovered.

Crew of Meteor WA665
Flying Officer Hugh Williams, RAF
Flight Lieutenant Arthur Desmond Lockyer, RAF

A series of feature articles appeared in "The Northern Echo" [1st, 8th and 16th February 2020] on the subject of aircraft accidents at RAF Middleton St. George, with the emphasis on Meteor crashes in the Darlington area. The following is an excerpt from those articles:

"AVIATION historian Peter Caygill has written many books about planes, including the story of the Darlington Spitfire in 1999 and the story of the Meteor in 2010, which was entitled Meteor from the Cockpit: Britain’s First Jet Fighter.

For that book he researched the events of April 24, 1952, which, as we told last week, were witnessed by Geoff Craggs: a Meteor disintegrated over Dinsdale and fell into fields near the Farmhouse Inn at Morton Palms on the eastern outskirts of Darlington.

Two airmen – Flying Officer Hugh Williams and Flight Lieutenant Arthur Lockyer were killed – and young Geoff cycled out in search of souvenirs and was shocked to see an airman’s legs lying beneath a tarpaulin.

“The aircraft was a two-seat Meteor T.7 (WA665) from No.205 Advanced Flying School at Middleton St George which crashed on 24 April 1952,” says Peter. “They took off at 06:55 hrs and the weather conditions were a solid overcast at 3,500ft with tops at 10,000ft. Visibility was eight miles.

“The flight only lasted just over two minutes as the Meteor was next seen emerging from cloud in a steep dive. It was heading in a southerly direction over Morton Palms and broke up shortly afterwards.

“It was seen by a ground witness who reported that there was a considerable time lag between the break-up and the impact of the forward fuselage. It was also his impression that the larger pieces of the aircraft gained height after the break-up before falling to the ground.

“The conclusion of the Court of Inquiry was that the accident was caused by sudden pilot-induced ‘g’ while travelling fast in a steep dive.”

OUR report of the McMullen anniversary included an eyewitness account of the crash from Geoff Craggs, who was about 12 at the time, and remembered seeing the Lancaster bomber come over his family home in The Causeway, off Yarm Road.

Geoff has much stronger memories of a second crash in the area, perhaps soon after the war had ended. It occurred out-of-town, at Morton Palms, opposite the Old Farmhouse Inn which is midway between the Morrisons supermarket and Middleton St George on the A67.

A fighter, presumably heading back to the airfield, had come down in a field about 100 yards north of the inn, and Geoff, in his early teens, went out to see if any treasures could be salvaged from the wreck.

“It had nosedived straight into the ground,” he says. “It had made a big hole in the ground and the RAF men were digging it out when I arrived. I was looking for Perspex that I could make rings out of. They’d covered the plane with a tarpaulin, and I turned it back and there was the body of the pilot underneath – there was a pair of flying boots and his legs had been cut off but were still in the boots.”

DENNIS RALPHS of Hutton Rudby also remembers the events of April 24, 1952, as he was a member of the groundcrew at RAF Middleton St George: “I was tasked as a crash guard, and I was there for about three days,” he says. “We were sent with a hessian sack and a stick to pick up human remains before the foxes got them, and then we had to collect the other debris.”

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p. 128 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take-off: A Record of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p 240
3. Northern Echo 1 February 2020: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/18202110.darlington-plane-crash-body-pilot---legs-cut-off-still-boots/
4. Northern Echo 8 February 2020: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/18216598.gloster-meteors-took-six-lives-year-first-british-jet/
5. Northern Echo 16 February 2020: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/18236900.mystery-surrounds-plane-went-steep-dive-broke-pieces-skies-darlington
6. 203 AFS ORB (Operations Record Book)(Air Ministry Form AM/F.540) for the period 1/1/1951 to 31/5/1954: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 29/2145/1 at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7162858
7. National Archives (PRO Kew) File BT233/90: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C424211
8. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AVIA 5/32/S2571: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C6578417
9. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J. Halley, Air Britain, 1985 page 11)
10. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WA.
11. http://www.nelsam.org.uk/NEAR/Losses/Losses-PostWWII.htm
12. https://www.vintageinn.co.uk/restaurants/north-east/theoldfarmhousedarlington

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
31-May-2008 06:28	JINX	Added
07-Jun-2008 10:36	JINX	Updated
12-May-2015 08:21	AlLah	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator]
23-Jul-2017 20:02	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
01-Nov-2018 08:26	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Operator]
30-Dec-2019 00:05	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Operator, Phase, Source, Narrative]
30-Dec-2019 20:37	stehlik49	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Departure airport, Operator]
09-May-2020 23:07	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]
09-Dec-2020 17:06	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Operator, Source, Narrative]
09-Dec-2020 17:07	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
09-Dec-2020 17:42	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location, Source, Narrative]
10-Dec-2020 18:16	AlLach	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Operator]
04-Mar-2021 20:10	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]
05-Mar-2021 19:15	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
05-Mar-2021 19:15	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Aircraft type]