Date:	Friday 11 September 1953
Time:	day
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 8
Owner/operator:	Horsham St. Faith SF RAF
Registration:	WF695
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Royal Woolwich Arsenal, Woolwich, London -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Demo/Airshow/Display
Departure airport:	RAF Horsham St Faith, Norwich, Norfolk
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.8 WF695, RAF Horsham St, Faith Station Flight: delivered 9 October 1951. Written off (destroyed) 11 September 1953 when collided with Meteor WK938 while avoiding a Hurricane during the Battle of Britain Flypast rehearsal. WF695 lost tail and spun into the ground at Woolwich Arsenal between two explosives storage huts. The pilot of Meteor WF695 was killed. Meteor WK938 managed to make a safe emergency landing at RAF North Weald, Essex, and the pilot of that aircraft was unhurt. According to a the following published report (see link #12):

"...I worked at the Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich Arsenal when it first opened in May 2001. On one of the opening weekends a colleague approached me to ask if I had ever heard of a plane crashing into the Arsenal in 1953 and killing its pilot. Asked her why she wanted to know and she informed me that the pilots son was on site and asking whereabouts the crash happened and what had happened to the memorial stone that the Local Co-op funeral services had erected on the 40th annivesary. Turned out no one employed knew any details about it.

Anyway it nagged at me being a plane buff of sorts and after 6 months keeping an eye out for information I managed to get the full story.

In a rehersal for the Battle of Britain flypast in September 1953 Wing Commander Robert Duncan Yule flying out of Horsham St Faith (Norwich) in his Meteor F.Mk.8 carrying his initials on the side was leading the mass of Meteors on the approach path for Buckingham Palace, he moved up and over to get a good view of the formation and suddenly found that they were overtaking the lone Hurricane (LF363?) and fast approaching the point of no return at Woolwich and manoeuvered to rejoin the formation. What he wasnt aware of was that his No.2 was flying below and alongside as any good wingman should in combat, they collided knocking Wing Commander Yule's complete tail plane off and shattering the No.2's cockpit canopy, giving him concussion.

Wing Commander Yule's aircraft went into a flat spin and crashed between 2 explosives storage huts on the Woolwich Arsenal site and burst into flames, Arsenal staff attempted to douse the conflagration and rescue the pilot but to no avail. About 7 awards were given to these chaps at later date. The No.2 aircraft (Meteor WK938) made an emergency landing at, I believe, Hornchurch.

Wing Commander Yule was from New Zealand and had joined up at the beginning of the war with the likes of Al Deere, survived the battle of Britain and other wartime battles and remained in the RAF when peace returned. He was married with 2 small boys at the time of his death, perhaps named Michael and Athony both of whom went on to have flying careers of their own one with the RAF the other BOAC and it was one of these guys who had visited the museum that opening weekend.

The Co-op memorial stone I traced to Building 40 (the Old Oficers mess), where it sat on a window sill, but you can still see the fixing points for it inside the entrance hall before the door to the southern saloon. It then sat for a long period in the Curators office, the presiding directors not wishing to take on any repsonsibilty for it until it was passed to the Greenwich Heritage centre for safe keeping."

Crew of Meteor WF695
Wing Commander (33502) Robert Duncan "Bob" Yule DSO DFC & Bar (pilot) RAF - killed in service 11/9/1953

The owners of the "Evening Standard" newspaper were officially reprimanded for low flying offences in connection with this incident, when they sent their Westland-Sikorsky S-51 Dragonfly Srs.1A G-ANAL over the crash site to photograph the wreckage from above (see link #7). The pilot of G-ANAL was charged with "dangerous low flying" as he flew over heavily populated built up areas of South East London at an altitude of below 500 feet. The newspaper was taken to court and and fined £10,000 for endangering life by flying too close to HT Wires and flying over a restricted area, a lot of money for 1953 (equivalent to £285,530.86 in 2020) and it led them to dispose of said helicopter".

The wreckage of Meteor WF695 was recovered by (and to) 49 MU RAF Colerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire, where Struck Off Charge on 28 September 1953 as Cat. 5(c), and authorised to be reduced to scrap and components

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.150 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take-off: A Record of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p 411
3. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p 39)
4. Alan Bristow: Helicopter Pioneer: The Autobiography pp 92-93 By Alan Bristow, Patrick Malone
5. Evening Post - Friday 11 September 1953
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Yule#Later_career_and_death
7. https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/record/C37050
8. Low flying of `Evening Standard' helicopter over Woolwich Arsenal after crash of Meteor jet aircraft on 11 September 1953: prosecution by Air Ministry: National Archives (PRO Kew) file BT 248/244: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C427707
9. http://sussexhistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=7551.0
10. Pilots gravestone: https://www.flickr.com/photos/43688219@N00/1118240561
11. http://aircrewremembered.com/BattleOfBritainDatabase/?q=145+sqd
12. https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/73768/Yule-Robert-Duncan-Bob.htm
13. https://hmvf.co.uk/topic/11101-215afs-meteor-crash-1952/?do=findComment&comment=152177
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Arsenal

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
06-Jun-2008 22:28	JINX	Added
15-Jun-2011 23:14	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Location, Phase, Nature, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
07-Jan-2013 15:07	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Narrative]
29-Nov-2013 21:46	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Departure airport]
10-May-2015 17:26	Angel Dick one	Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
02-Oct-2018 07:41	angels one five	Updated [Narrative]
03-Dec-2018 17:53	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Operator]
27-Nov-2019 14:21	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Narrative, Operator]
05-Feb-2020 22:56	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Operator, Location, Source, Narrative]
06-Feb-2020 09:09	stehlik49	Updated [Operator, Operator]
14-May-2021 22:35	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
15-May-2021 22:58	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Narrative]
15-May-2021 22:59	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
16-May-2021 10:14	Angel Dick one	Updated [Operator, Narrative, Operator]
17-May-2021 13:24	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
17-May-2021 13:26	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]