On 30th November 1950 the pilot of this No.205 Advanced Flying School aircraft was undertaking a training exercise when he flew too far from Middleton St.George airfield and eventually ran out of fuel. At 4,000 feet the pilot contacted his base and informed them of the situation and that he was going to bale out, he eventually baled out but by the time he did this the aircraft was too low. He was killed when his parachute failed to deploy properly and he landed in an orchard. The aircraft came down three miles west of Guisborough and disintergrated. The pilot was on only his second solo flight and had only two hours flying the Meteor at the time of his death. The field where the aircraft crashed into is said to have a "dead" patch to this day but I have yet to learn exactly where this is.
Meteor EE599 was initially ordered as a Gloster Thunderbolt and was built to contract ACFT/1490 by Gloster at Hucclecote but at some point the Gloster "Thunderbolt" was renamed the "Meteor". It was delivered to the RAF in December 1946 and issued to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough where it was presumably used for test or evaluation purposes. No clear history is known until the aircraft was issued to 205 A.F.S. soon after the unit formed on 7th September 1950. As a result of the accident on 20th November 1950 the aircraft was written off with Cat.E2/FA damage being the damage assesment.
Pilot - Sgt Thomas Henry St.John Seabrook RAF (3507650), aged 24. Buried Darlington Western Cemetery, Co.Durham.
Thomas Seabrook was born on 15th May 1926 in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India. Nothing more about him is yet known.