At 09.10hrs on 9th June 1952 the pilot of this aircraft made a belly landing north of Guisborough after running out of fuel on a training exercise. He had become lost whilst out to sea and when he made land he thought he was south of Flamborough Head. He was told of his rough location and to divert to Middleton St George but by this time he was low on fuel so made the forced landing. The pilot survived although the aircraft was badly damaged
Pilot - P/O Micheal Desmond Shirley Towler RAF (583955), aged 21.
I am told that this Meteor came to rest in one of these two fields shown in this photograph. It had apparently crossed over the Marske to Guisborough road passing through the road's boundary hedges.
Micheal Towler was appointed to a commission in the RAF on 17th May 1951 (with his period of service to count from 6th December 1950) to the rank of Acting P/O on probation from Cadet Pilot, probably after training at Cranwell. He was confirmed in the rank of P/O on 9th February 1952 but his commission was terminated on 19th September 1952. The obvious assumption to make is that he was blamed for this accident at Guisborough and his rank taken away from him.
Meteor VT181 was built to contract 6/ACFT/658 by Gloster Aircraft Ltd at Hucclecote, delivered to the RAF in April 1948 and issued to 1 Squadron at Tangmere in June 1948 when to unit converted to the type. It is believed to have been slightly damaged with 1 Squadron when one of the main undercarriage legs collapsed on landing on an unknown date and was repaired. It was later transferred to 203 AFS at Driffield when the unit formed from 226 OCU on 1st September 1949. It sustained Cat.5/FA damage as a result of the incident near Guisborough.