Date:	Tuesday 19 June 1951
Time:	13:00 LT
Type:	Gloster Meteor F Mk 4
Owner/operator:	205 AFS RAF
Registration:	VT239
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Ingleborough, SW of Ribblehead Viaduct, North Yorkshire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Middleton St. George, near Darlington, County Durham
Destination airport:	RAF Middleton St. George, Co. Durham
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Gloster Meteor F4, VT239, 205 AFS (Advanced Flying School): delivered 26/8/1948. Written off 19/6/1951: On 19th June 1951 the pilot of this aircraft had taken off from Middleton St.George at 12.30hrs to undertake what was described as a "long range exercise" training flight. He was briefed to fly at 30,000 feet for part of the flight before descending to carry out aerobatics. Thirty minutes into the flight the aircraft was seen flying at between two and three thousand feet over the Ribblehead area when it then entered a near vertical dive and caught fire just before it struck the ground at 13.00hrs. On striking hard limestone, the aircraft exploded and scattered wreckage across a wide area. It was thought that the pilot had probably passed out through lack of oxygen just before the aircraft entered the dive from which there was no hope of recovering from

Crew of Meteor VT239
Pilot Officer Gerald Leslie Reeve RAF (3119556), aged 20, Born Weedon, Northamptonshire. Killed on active service 19/6/1951. Buried Darlington Western Cemetery, Co.Durham.

Note that some publised sources give the crash location as "Inglesbrough Mountain, near Settle". Ribblehead is the area of moorland at the head of the River Ribble in the area known as Ribblesdale, in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, England. Ribblehead is most notable for Ribblehead railway station and Ribblehead Viaduct on the Settle to Carlisle railway. It is in North Yorkshire with its nearest town being Ingleton.

Ingleborough (723 metres or 2,372 feet) is the second-highest mountain in the Yorkshire Dales, England. It is one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks (the other two being Whernside and Pen-y-ghent), and is frequently climbed as part of the Three Peaks walk, and is approxmately six miles south west of Ribblehead.

1. Halley, James (1999) Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.115 ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft SA100-VZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1983)
3. Last Take Off; A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1950 to 1953 by Colin Cummings p.148
4. 205 AFS ORB (Operations Record Book)(Air Ministry Form AM/F.540) for the period 1/1/1951 to 31/5/1954: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 29/2145/2 at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7162859
5. http://www.ukserials.com/results.php?serial=VT
6. http://www.dtvmovements.co.uk/Info/History/Accidents.htm
7. http://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/planes/dales/vt239.html
8. https://www.nelsam.org.uk/NEAR/Losses/Losses-PostWWII.htm
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribblehead
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingleborough

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
31-Jan-2021 16:08	Dr. John Smith	Added
31-Jan-2021 16:10	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Destination airport, Narrative]
31-Jan-2021 20:09	Opietz	Updated [Operator, Destination airport, Operator]