Date:	Sunday 15 October 1944
Time:
Type:	Handley Page Halifax Mk II
Owner/operator:	1667 HCU RAF
Registration:	DK116
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 4 / Occupants: 7
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Glendu Hill, Kielder Forest, Northumberland, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Sandtoft, Lincolnshire
Destination airport:

Narrative:
The crew of Halifax DK116/GG-Z had taken off from RAF Sandtoft near Scunthorpe on a cross country navigation exercise when the port inner engine caught fire. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful and the crew prepared to bail out. However, only three of the crew managed to leave before the aircraft dived into Glendhu Hill in the Kielder Forest, Northumberland, barely a mile from the Scottish border.

Various reports suggest the pilot put the Halifax into a dive in an attempt to put the fire out but from which it failed to recover and/or that the remaining crew tried to save the life of the rear gunner who was allegedly trapped in his turret. However, after the three men bailed out no-one knows for sure what happened.

CREW (Killed)
P/O Herbert George Haddrell (Pilot)
Sgt John Neilson (Flight Engineer)
W/O Maurice Fredrick James (Air Gunner)
W/O Geoffrey Symonds (Air Gunner)
CREW (Survived)
Sgt John Mahony (Navigator) [Killed in action six months later]
Sgt Reid (Wireless Operator)
Sgt Hammond (Air Gunner)

One of the four Bristol Hercules engines was dug out from under 20 ft of peat in the 1970s. It should be noted that the trees that have grown up around the crash site were not there in October 1944 - they were planted in the early 1960s. Due to the remoteness and inaccessability of the crash site, large pieces of wreckage remain where they crashed. In late 2012, the original wooden memorial cross near the crash site was replaced (see links #2 & #3)

1. Aircraft Wrecks: The Walker's Guide : Historic Crash Sites on the Moors and Mountains of the British Isles p.156 By Nick Wotherspoon, Alan Clark, Mark Sheldon
2. Northern Echo 30 October 2012: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/10015767.memorial-killed-airmen-made-weardale-volunteers-unveiled-kielder-forest/
3. Border Telegraph 6 November 2012: https://www.bordertelegraph.com/leisure/reviews/13540071.new-memorial-for-wwii-wreck-site-in-kielder/
4. http://www.wtdwhd.co.uk/Kielder15.html
5. https://militaryaircraftcrashsites.blogspot.com/2013/11/halifax-dk116.html
6. https://aircrashsites.co.uk/raf-crash-sites-1942-1945/052e/
7. http://www.newmp.org.uk/detail.php?contentId=7825
8. https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/111948/
9. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2932994/maurice-frederick-james/
10. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2709938/herbert-george-haddrell/
11. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2714733/john-nielsen/
12. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2413149/geoffrey-symonds/
13. https://www.flickr.com/photos/a-j_2010/5558994037/
14. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6358509

This replica cockpit was built by Cees Broere using original drawings and includes original small components from several aircraft including Halifax Mk.II ‘LW363’, Halifax Mk.III ‘LV917’, Halifax Mk.V ‘DK116’ and Short Stirling ‘BK710’. It has been allocated the British Aircraft Preservation Council identity BAPC544 and in 2018 it became part of the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, East Kirkby, Lincolnshire, UK (28th August 2021)

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
20-Oct-2013 11:29	gerard57	Added
11-Nov-2023 12:15	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Location, Nature, Narrative, Operator]