On 11th December 1950 the pilot of this No.205 Advanced Flying School Meteor was practicing aerobatics on a training flight in an area just off the Yorkshire Coast, the pilot lost his barings while flying in bad weather. The aircraft eventually ran low on fuel while flying in cloud and a snow storm and the pilot realised that he would have not been able to make a landing back at Middleton St.George. He shut one engine down to save on fuel and after crossing the coast in the Robin Hoods Bay area he found a suitable flat location to make a forced landing. A forced belly landing was made on moorland near High Quebec Farm, Sleights and the aircraft appeared not badly damaged to witnesses spoken to by the Whitby Gazette newspaper reporter. The pilot escaped injury. After making the landing the pilot walked down to Quebec Farm where the local newspaper reported that he met the owner who gave him a cup of tea! He then walked to the nearest Police station in Sleights before returning to the site with the police who put a guard on the aircraft. Later that day, having contacted his base by telephone, his Commanding Officer came out to collect him by car (not as was recorded in the newspaper - that he made his own way back by train from Whitby).
Pilot - F/Lt Harry Leonard Mellor RAF (51739).
Harry Leonard "Len" Mellor was born on 31st October 1918 at Chesterfield and was the son of Harry Hampton and Florence Mary (nee Copley) Mellor. He originally joined the RAF as a Halton apprentice in 1934 and became an experienced wartime pilot of propeller driven aircraft. He received a commission on 19th January 1943 to the rank of P/O on probation and was promoted to F/O on 19th July 1943 and to F/Lt (War Subs) on 19th January 1945. During the War he flew 24 operational flights with 49 Squadron flying Lancasters. On the 19th July 1946 his rank of F/Lt was confirmed in the post-War RAF. After his time with 49 Squadron he became a flying instructor and was posted to the Empire Flying School Examining Squadron as an examiner. He then did a ground tour as Adjutant at Finningley occasionally piloting Wellingtons before being head hunted by the Commanding Officer at Middleton St George (also his former C.O. with the EFS) to be a Meteor instructor not long before the incident at Sleights. At the time of the forced landing at Sleights he was gaining experience on the type. In relation to this incident at Sleights, at the time he is recorded on the basic accident record card as having flown over 2000 hours, however at that time his time flying the Meteor was very short, with just three hours on the type. In the last six months prior to the crash landing he had piloted aircraft for only four hours on any type. He was later awarded the Air Force Cross, Gazetted on 5th June 1952. The London Gazette gives details that he retired from the RAF on 23rd January 1953 but then was "re-employed on the active list" on that date. He was promoted to S/Ldr on 1st July 1959 and S/Ldr Mellor AFC finally retired from the RAF on 31st July 1962. He died in November 2014. I thank members of his close family for kindly contacting me and supplying the photograph and much of the information shown above about him (especially to Mr Chris Saxby).
I visited the general area of where this aircraft is thought to have crash landed in June 2006. Whilst having no real information to accurately track it down a wide area of moor south of High Quebec Farm was searched for any small trace of the aircraft; nothing was found. The photograph above shows the most likely location where the aircraft was landed, in the area of moorland between the camera and the pylons on the background of the photograph. The whole moor is fairly flat and though there is the odd large rock, as can be seen in this photograph, they do not stick up too high.