Date:	Thursday 7 December 1950
Time:	night
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 4
Owner/operator:	66 Sqn RAF
Registration:	RA487
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Hagg Side Woods, Derwent Valley, Derbyshire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.Mk.4 RA487/"LZ-D", 66 Squadron RAF: Written off (damaged beyond repair) 7/12/1950. While on a night navigation exercise, the pilot Sergeant Joseph Harrington found himself above low cloud while aware of the hills somewhere beneath him. The Meteor’s radio had failed, leaving him unable to get a fix by any means other than a visual. In fact, Sergeant Harrington did see a road and considered a forced landing, as his fuel was almost depleted, but a looming chimney forced him back up and into the cloud.

Sergeant Harrington did what so many others lost in the region had signally failed to do: deciding that enough was enough, and he took his Meteor up to 5,000 feet and made the balanced decision to leave the aircraft to its own devices.

The aircraft continued on in a north easterly direction before diving into what by then was a plantation above the Ladybower Reservoir. The pilot, Sergeant Harrington, meanwhile had landed close to Castleton and was taken to the Police station where he was collected by the RAF Mountain Rescue team from No.28 MU at Harpur Hill.

Crew of Meteor RA487:
Flight Sergeant Joseph Harrington, RAF - survived, bailed out

Joseph Harrington went on to fly airliners for Swissair! The crash site is only a mile to the South East of where Boulton-Paul Defiant N1766 crashed after its crew had baled out too, in similar circumstances, nearly 10 years earlier.

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.109 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft PA100-RZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1987)
3. Last Take Off; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p.97
4. Aircraft Wrecks: The Walker's Guide: Historic Crash Sites on the Moors and Mountains of the United Kingdom p.114 By Nick Wotherspoon, Alan Clark, Mark Sheldon
5. 66 Squadron ORB (Operations Record Book)(Air Ministry Form AM/F.540) for the period 1/9/1946 to 31/12/1950: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 27/2428 at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2505066
6. https://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/crash_sites/peak-district/gloster-meteor-ra487-hagg-side/
7. https://aircrashsites.co.uk/air-crash-sites-5/gloster-meteor-ra487-hagg-side-peak-district/
8. https://peakwreckhunters.blogspot.com/2010/03/gloster-meteor-f-mk4-ra487.html
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybower_Reservoir
10. https://mapcarta.com/N3170625264
11. https://peakcrashsites.home.blog/gloster-meteor-ra487/ .

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
06-Jan-2021 03:04	Dr. John Smith	Added
06-Jan-2021 10:09	Lelek	Updated [Operator, Operator]
11-Jan-2021 21:27	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location, Source, Narrative]