Date:	Thursday 7 August 1952
Time:	13:55 LT
Type:	Gloster Meteor T Mk 7
Owner/operator:	228 OCU RAF
Registration:	WF793
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Bellerby Moor, 2 miles north of Leyburn, North Yorkshire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Approach
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire
Destination airport:	RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor T.Mk.7 WF793, 228 OCU, RAF Leeming: Delivered 25 April 1951. Written off 7 August 1952 when crashed at Bellerby Moor, 2 miles North of Leyburn, North Yorkshire. Both crew were killed.

On the 7th of August 1952 the two airmen on this aircraft were undertaking a daytime training exercise. Having taken off from Leeming at 13.28 hrs the nature of the training flight is not yet known but there was an instructor flying with a student. The aircraft was returning from the training flight with its undercarriage down and was under control of Leeming's tower to make a ground controlled approach to land there. The training flight could actually have been to practice such landings.

The ground controller gave the aircraft a course to steer and began to let down through cloud with the aim of landing. By this stage radio contact was lost with the aircraft and almost certainly without warning the aircraft crashed into high ground to the north of Leyburn, in the region of Bellerby Moor and was destroyed sadly killing the crew of two. The crash investigation found the probable cause was that the ground controller was following the wrong blip on his radar screen and thus assumed that this blip was WF793. This second aircraft was making a landing approach to either Topcliffe or Dishforth and was flying roughly the same direction. The ground controller was blamed for the crash and removed from such duties.

Crew of Meteor WF793:
Instructor Pilot - Master Pilot Jan Pawlikowski (792811) RAF - killed.
Student Pilot - P/O Stanley Edwin Hunt (3111951) RAF - killed

Bellerby is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England, about 7 miles (11 km) south-west of Richmond. It is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the market town of Leyburn.

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.132 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Last Take-off: A Record of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p 277
3. 228 Squadron ORB (Operations Record Book)(Air Ministry Form AM/F.540) for the period 1/3/1951 to 31/12/1955: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR AIR 29/2166 at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4101876
4. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WF
5. http://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/planes/dales/wf793.html
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellerby

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
07-Jun-2008 03:25	JINX	Added
23-Jan-2012 05:20	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
18-Mar-2021 18:20	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
18-Mar-2021 18:29	Xindel	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location, Narrative, Operator]
20-Mar-2021 13:54	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location]
20-May-2021 09:36	Anon.	Updated [Narrative, Operator]