Date:	Wednesday 17 March 1954
Time:	day
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 4
Owner/operator:	209 AFS RAF
Registration:	VT309
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	RAF Weston Zoyland, Bridgwater, Somerset. -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Take off
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Weston Zoyland, Somerset
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.Mk.4 VT309: Delivered 3/11/48. RAF Service was with 63 Squadron, RAF Waterbeach Station Flight, 203 AFS and 209 AFS

Written off (damaged beyond repair) 17/3/54: Having abandoned the take off from RAF Weston Zoyland, Bridgwater, Somerset, the pilot - Air Commodore Francs Joseph St. George Braithwaite (Service Number 05161, aged 47) - retracted the undercarriage in an attempt to stop the aircraft. However Meteor VT309 did not stop in time, and ran off the end of the runway, and caught fire

While the pilot survived this incident - and later rose through the ranks to be promoted to become an Air Vice Marshall - he was killed on 21/12/56 when Meteor T.7 WF848 crashed at Pulau Batum Island, Indonesia after control was lost in cloud

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.155 ISBN 0-85130-290-4
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft SA100-VZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p 86)
3. Category Five; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009 by Colin Cummings p.43
4. Wings Over Somerset: Aircraft Crashes since the End of World War II By Peter Forrester
5. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=VT
6. https://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/Braithwaite.htm
7. Air Commodore Frances St. George Braithwaite in 1954: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp76330/francis-joseph-st-george-braithwaite

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
06-Apr-2020 21:20	Dr. John Smith	Added
07-Apr-2020 09:42	INV	Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Operator]