Date:	Monday 28 February 1949
Time:	day
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 4
Owner/operator:	1 Sqn RAF
Registration:	VT140
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	English Channel, off the coast of West Sussex, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Tangmere, Chichester, West Sussex
Destination airport:	RAF Tangmere, West Sussex

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.4 VT140: Delivered to 1 Squadron, RAF Tangmere, Chichester, West Sussex, 28.5.48.

Written off (presumed destroyed) 28.2.49 when went missing on air-to-sea firing practice; presumed crashed in sea off the coast of West Sussex. The pilot had been "reproved" (reprimanded) on a previous occasion about his very low-level flying, while engaged in air-to-ground firing against ground targets. During this sortie, from RAF Tangmere, on another air-to-ground firing sortie against a ground target, the Meteor failed to pull out of the dive in time, and flew into the sea at high speed.
Aircraft presumed destroyed and pilot killed; however, there seem to have been no witnesses to the incident.
Crew:
P. III Sgt (1609431) Gordon Edward Thomas FOREST (pilot) RAF - missing, presumed killed

1. Halley, James (1999). Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents. Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd, ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Final Landings: A Summary of RAF Aircraft and Combat Losses 1946 to 1949 by Colin Cummings p.480
3. Royal Air Force Aircraft SA100-VZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain)
4. https://air-britain.com/pdfs/aeromilitaria/Aeromilitaria_2009.pdf p.172
5. 1 Squadron ORB for March 1949: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 27/
6. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=vt
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._1_Squadron_RAF#Post-War
8. https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/gordon-edward-thomas-forest-24-1dvgf92
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Tangmere#Postwar

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