Date:	Thursday 14 August 1952
Time:	day
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 8
Owner/operator:	92 (East India) Sqn RAF
Registration:	WK657
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Casey's Farm, Dogdyke, near Coningsby, Lincolnshire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.Mk.8 WK657, 92 (East India) Squadron, RAF: Written off (destroyed) 14/8/52 when crashed at Casey's Farm, Dogdyke, near Coningsby, Lincolnshire. Pilot - Squadron Leader John J "Jack" Jagger - was killed. According to an eyewitness report:

"I had been asked by JJJ to take up two new pilots to familiarise them with the area and 'to see if they are any good at formation flying'. One of them found formating difficult and used his throttle very coarsely, with the result that he rapidly used up his fuel and it became imperative to land earlier than we had expected. I was on another channel and had no idea that the CO was flying at the same time.

Struck ground during aerobatics. The plane was flown by Squadron Leader J J Jagger. 92 Sqn was spending a week at Coningsby, and a visit was made by a senior delegation. J J Jagger was an expert aerobatic pilot and agreed to put on a display for the delegation. His finale was always a bunt, half twist and a very low inverted high speed flight along the runway - undergoing very high negative g forces which could leave his eyes a bright salmon pink. A flight of 3 Meteors had requested permission to land and J J Jagger was asked by the tower to hurry his demonstration. Probably he started his last manoevre too slowly, and therefore did not have sufficient height. He did his normal half twist, realised he did not have sufficient height and did another half twist back to a normal attitude. Unfortunately he l did not have enough height and crashed into a herd of cows in a field at the end of the runway. A fine pilot and a great CO."

A further eyewitness report comes Patrick O’Leary, former National Service bomb armourer from RAF Coningsby has been researching the crash of a 92 Squadron Meteor that he witnessed from the bomb dump:

“Meteor WK657 of 92 Squadron (Linton-on-Ouse) crashed at Casey’s Farm near Dogdyke killing the pilot, Squadron Leader Jack Jagger. I was serving with the RAF doing national service working in the bomb dump as a bomb armourer. A few of us witnessed this sad event. I believe the pilot was practising for an air display and from the bomb dump we had a front row view! The Meteor started its take off run on the main runway from our right and became airborne about half way down. We watched in awe for as soon as his wheels were fully up, and when only 60 feet or so high, he did a complete 180 degree roll followed by a vertical climb to 2,000ft before performing a falling leaf manoeuvre at the bottom of which he pulled out too low and hit the high flood defence along the river bank and exploded. We actually saw the cockpit go flying on a good few hundred yards with the pilot still inside until it finally came to rest in a field of cows where it burst into flames killing the pilot and five of the cows.

Some of us were posted as site guards the next day – a very sad event never to be forgotten. Squadron Leader Jack Jagger was buried in Coningsby cemetery. I re-visited the area recently and, after chatting to some locals in the Packet Inn, managed to locate and visit Mervin Casey who has now taken over the running of the farm from his father. Mervin was only a young lad at the time of the crash. Mervin also said that a few years ago while dredging the river a large section of the Meteor’s fuselage was dragged up and lay in his yard for several years although it is no longer there. I did however manage to recover the aircraft’s camera lens"

Dogdyke is a hamlet in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated approximately 2 miles (3 km) south from Tattershall, and at the confluence of the Rivers Bain and Witham, and close to where the River Slea joins the Witham.

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.133 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take-off: A Record of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p 279
3. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p 69)
4. http://www.aircrewremembered.com/jagger-jack.html
5. http://docplayer.net/17251159-Newsletter-issue-19-spring-2010.html p 20
6. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WK
7. http://www.planetrace.co.uk/1950-1959_26.html
8. Pilots Gravestone: https://www.flickr.com/photos/96555212@N08/33110195568/
9. http://www.bcar.org.uk/1950s-incident-logs#1952
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogdyke

Aircrew Remembered own research see also Spitfire AA755 25 July 1943

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
18-Jun-2008 19:43	JINX	Added
05-Oct-2010 16:02	John Finney	Updated [Time, Source, Narrative]
16-Jan-2012 14:13	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Source, Narrative]
15-Nov-2015 07:51	pietrzak	Updated [Aircraft type, Source, Narrative, Photo, ]
08-Jan-2020 01:38	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Location, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
19-Mar-2021 23:09	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]