Date:	Friday 12 February 1954
Time:	22:00
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 4
Owner/operator:	209 AFS RAF
Registration:	VT313
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	RAF Weston Zoyland, Bridgwater, Somerset. -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Weston Zoyland, Bridgwater, Somerset
Destination airport:	RAF Weston Zoyland, Somerset
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F.Mk.4 VT313: Delivered to the RAF 28/10/48. RAF service was with 203 AFS, 226 OCU at RAF Stradishall, Suffolk, and lastly with 209 AFS at RAF Weston Zoyland, Bridgwater, Somerset.

Written off (damaged beyond repair) 12/2/54: while on approach to RAF Weston Zoyland, Bridgwater, Somerset, the pilot - Pilot Officer A Chapman (aged 19) - selected "undercarriage down" when the undercarriage was, in fact, already lowered. The caused the undercarriage to "cycle" (and therefore raise itself) while the aircraft was still in flight, causing a wheels-up belly landing with the undercarriage raised.

The immediate consequence of this was that Meteor VT313 blocked the runway at RAF Weston Zoyland unil it could be removed. A further consequence was that a flight of 7 other Meteors, which had taken off earlier, were forced to divert to RAF Merryfield, Somerset. Two of them - Meteor T.Mk.7s WH244 and VW430 crashed en route to their new destination, killing both the pilots on board. (See entries for WH244 & VW430).

The damaged Meteor F.Mk.4 VT313 was sent to Gloster Aircraft, with a view to repairing it. However, the aircraft was deemed to be "beyond economic repair", and instead was struck off charge as Cat.5(c) on 7/5/54, and broken up for scrap and components

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.155 ISBN 0-85130-290-4
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft SA100-VZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983)
3. Category Five; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009 by Colin Cummings p.34
4. Wings Over Somerset: Aircraft Crashes since the End of World War II By Peter Forrester
5. Chard & Ilminster News - 20 February 1954
6. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=VT
7. https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/70987-meteor-accident-statistics.html#post674650 ..

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
05-Apr-2020 20:19	Dr. John Smith	Added
05-Apr-2020 20:21	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Destination airport, Source]
05-Apr-2020 20:23	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source, Narrative]
06-Apr-2020 08:57	Iwosh	Updated [Operator, Departure airport, Destination airport, Operator]