Date:	Sunday 18 July 1954
Time:	day
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 8
Owner/operator:	604 (County of Middlesex) Sqn RAF
Registration:	WL132
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Take off
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire
Destination airport:
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.Mk.8 WL132: Delivered 14/1/54. Sold RAF service was with 604 (County of Middlesex) Squadron, only.

Written off (damaged beyond repair) 18/7/54. According to "The Right of The Line", the newsletter of the 600 Squadron RAF Association:

"604 Squadron returned to North Weald in time to participate in Exercise 'Dividend', during which it lost another aircraft. A section of two F.8s were just getting airborne from Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, when the leader (WL132/'F') flown by Flying Officer Norman Tebbit, abandoned his take-off when he believed his aircraft had failed to reach flying speed.

Electing to abandon take-off, Flying Officer Tebbit (23) selected wheels-up, whereupon the aircraft left the runway and skidded some 200 yards on its belly, crossing two ditches and catching fire. Flying Officer Tebbit jettisoned the canopy and rapidly exited the burning wreck without serious injury."

Contributing factors were the hump in the runway and the load the aircraft was carrying.

Crew of Meteor F.Mk.8 WL132
F/O (2435575) Norman Beresford Tebbit (pilot) RAF

The pilot of Meteor WL132 not only survived this accident but was later to become famous as a member of the Thatcher Conservative Government of 1979-1990 as Member of Parliament for Chingford, Essex and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. According to the wikipedia entry of his biography on this incident:

"Tebbit worked as a journalist for the Financial Times before serving with the Royal Air Force, during which time he flew Meteor and Vampire jets. In July 1954, at RAF Waterbeach near Cambridge, he had to break open the cockpit canopy of a burning Meteor 8 aircraft to escape from it, unknowingly fracturing two vertebrae in the accident".

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.191 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1985 p.72)
3. Category Five; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009 by Colin Cummings p.72
4. Fly Past Magazine (Key Publishing) magazine interview (in May 2014) with Norman Wells, October 2014 edition.
5. Biography of Pilot: Upwardly Mobile - Norman Tebbit - An autobiography by Tebbit, Norman, Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1988) ISBN 10: 0297794272 ISBN 13: 9780297794271
6. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WL
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Tebbit#Early_life_and_career_before_politics
8. http://600squadronassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The-Right-of-The-Line-Dec-2018-141218.pdf
9. https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/401942-norman-tebbits-raf-service.html
10. https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/514701-norman-tebbit.html

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
19-Jun-2008 19:01	JINX	Added
10-Jan-2012 14:33	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Departure airport, Source]
23-Mar-2019 11:44	Anon.	Updated [Aircraft type, Source, Narrative]
15-Apr-2020 23:07	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
15-Apr-2020 23:09	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time]