Spitfire X4662 near Brompton, Northallerton.

On the 27th of July 1941 the pilot of this aircraft took off from Catterick at 11.35hrs to practice aerobatics at 15,00ft over the to the east of the airfield. Twelve minutes later and over Northallerton the aircraft's starboard wing broke off in the air and crashed near Brompton, Northallerton. The pilot was killed in the crash. The wing had broken off because of the strain put on the airframe during an over violent aerobatic manoeuvre.

In 2008 I was contacted by Mr T Gorman who, as a boy, had witnessed this accident, it crashed into a small field near the village and made a reasonable size crater from which he and his friends collected peices of perspex. The aircraft had been damaged in a crash landing near Market Weighton in April 1941.

Pilot - Sgt Stephen H Vavasour-Durrell RAFVR (1257744), aged 24, of Hampstead, London. Buried Catterick Cemetery, Yorkshire.