Date:	Tuesday 11 September 1956
Time:	day
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 8
Owner/operator:	Turnhouse CF RAF
Registration:	WK787
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Gogar, 2 miles SE of RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, Lothian -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Turnhouse, Edinburgh, Lothian
Destination airport:	RAF Turnhouse, Lothian
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.Mk.8 WK787: Notified as Awaiting Collection 12/8/1952. Delivered 15/8/1952. RAF Service career was with 222 Squadron, RAF Caledonian Sector, and RAF Turnhouse Communications Flight

Written off (destroyed) 11/9/1956: Dived into ground after high speed stall recovering from loop. The aircraft was involved in a practice display for the "Battle of Britain Day" event at RAF Turnhouse. The pilot carried out a series of manoeuvres at altitudes of between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. At the end of this, the pilot flew across the airfield at RAF Turnhouse at approximately 300 feet, then began to climb to make a loop.

At the aircraft came over the top of the loop, it assumed an almost vertical nose down attitude. The recovery from this attitude was made violently, and the aircraft flicked to the right and to the left before the nose dropped again. The Meteor dived into the ground and caught fire on impact with the ground, killing the pilot (the sole person on board). From other reports (see below) the fireball consumed both the aircraft and the pilot.

Crew of Meteor WK787
Flying Officer Peter Mitchell (pilot, aged 23) - killed on active service 11/9/56, buried at Leven, Fife

Additional: According to sources published on the "RAF Commands" forum...

"Peter Mitchell was my gran’s cousin. We’ve been trying to hunt down information about this...there wasn’t really a proper funeral per se because there was nothing to bury."

"For what its worth I was 10 years old, playing football at Sighthill watching the Meteor jet go through its routine and witnessed the crash from about a mile away. It hit the ground near the A8 at Gogar."

The reported crash location of Gogar is a predominantly rural area of Edinburgh, Scotland, located to the west of the city. It is not far from Gogarloch, Edinburgh Park and Maybury, at approximate coordinates 55.935°N 3.334°W, and about 2 miles south east of RAF Turnhouse. It is also directly in line with runway 12/30 at Turnhouse

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.186 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft WA100-WZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983 p 70)
3. Category Five; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009 by Colin Cummings p.211
4. http://www.ukserials.com/losses-1956.htm
5. http://www.planetrace.co.uk/1950-1959_26.html
6. http://simviation.com//lair/casualty1956.htm
7. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=WK
8. http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/05146.php
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogar

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
19-Jun-2008 09:21	JINX	Added
12-May-2015 17:47	BlB	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Location]
27-Nov-2019 14:51	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Operator]
09-Jul-2020 20:02	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Location, Phase, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
10-Jul-2020 20:42	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
01-Aug-2020 11:43	Apen	Updated [Operator, Destination airport, Operator]