At 09.11hrs on 29th May 1951 this 228 Operational Conversion Unit aircraft took off from Leeming airfield so that a highly experienced pilot could check the lesser experienced pilot on various aspects of single engined flying on the Meteor type. The more experienced pilot does not appear to have been a qualified instructor on the Meteor type, and the lesser expeienced pilot actually had more flying time on the Meteor type than the assessing officer and may have been a staff pilot at the training unit rather than undertaking conversion training. The first part of the flight was flown at altitude and was to practice homing and also to carry out a high level controlled descent through clouds. At 09.35hrs the aircraft was back in the area of Leeming airfield and the assessing officer requested permission for them to carry out some single engined approaches to land and then making single engined overshoots using the longest runway. The port engine was the engine to be shut down so that the aircraft was being flown on just the starboard engine. The Meteor flew one circuit of the airfield but the crew then received a radio message to hold off making the approach to land and to fly another circuit of the airfield because a visiting aircraft was making a landing at the time on a different runway. The Meteor complied with these instructions and flew another circuit. This circuit took them down off the west side of the airfield, flying north to south, having flown to a point off the south-west side of the airfield the pilot then made a turn which took it back over to the east side of the A1 and put the aircraft back into the correct line for making an approach to land again at Leeming. It then initially then lined up with the runway as was expected at between 600 to 800 feet above the ground but it then made a sharp banked turn to port, lost height and sideslipped with the port wing down into a field at the west side of the A1 road. The crash occurred at just before 09.45hrs. It's wing struck in one field but it then passed through a hedge and broke up in the field beyond. The pilot being given the assessment was killed in the crash while the instructor was seriously injured, he subsequently died on some weeks later on 20th June 1951. Exactly what it crashed was not clear. It was also not clear who was in control of the aircraft when it crashed and it was found that the undercarriage and flaps were lowered as would be expected for a landing but also the airbrakes were extended at the time of the crash, this may have seen the aircraft's stalling speed be greater than with them retracted. The site has just escaped the bulldozer during the most recent A1(M) road upgrade on the south-west side Leeming airfield. Meteor WA604 was the first meteor to arrive with this unit on 25th April 1951.
Assessing Pilot - S/Ldr Michael John Gloster DFC and Bar RAF (65559). Aged 30. Died of injuries 20th June 1951. Buried Solihull (St.Alphege?) Parish Churchyard, Birmingham.
Pupil Pilot - F/Sgt Harold Uppard RAF (551631). Aged 30. Buried High Heaton Cemetery, Newcastle.
Harold Uppard had been in the RAF since 1937. He had married just nine months before his death.