On 8th August 1998 this aircraft was damaged in a landing accident at a private farm strip somewhere on the North Yorkshire Moors but which one is unclear. The pilot was planning to return to land at this farm strip but the weather made a turn for the worse so he diverted to another farm strip in the locality. The weather here was fine so after a short time, following an unsuccessful attempt at telephoning his home airfield, he set out on the twenty minute flight home. The weather was by now fine and when he got to his airstrip the landing area looked fine. He touched down on the strip but as he applied the brakes there was no response. As he approached the end of the strip the pilot slewed the aircraft to the right, he was unable to stop before he hit the boundary fence with the tail of the aircraft and the propeller struck a wooden gate. The reason for the mishap was put on the wet runway which appeared dry from the air.
Pilot - Name unknown.
As yet the crash location is not known, the AAIB report does not state where the accident occurred other than on a private strip on the North Yorkshire Moors. What is known however is that occurred on a "Grass Runway 02/20", there are two runways in the area with the direction of 2/20; Fadmoor and Moorsholm, at present there is no confirmation of which it was. OR, someone at the AAIB has mixed up the Yorkshire Moors with the Yorkshire Dales.
This Cessna was built by Reims Aviation SA, France and first registered in the UK on 9th September 1971. The aircraft was registered to Middleton Minature Moulding Ltd, of Middleton in Teesdale, Barnard Castle on 12th August 1998, four days after the accident but the aircraft could not have been repaired by then. It was fairly common for people to obtain ownership prior to them then registering ownership so it may have been in their care when this incident occurred. The registration was cancelled on 29th April 1999 when it was re-registered as G-FIJJ by the same owner. It was later registered to D.R.Vale at Burton on Trent, then to "Fly 177 SARL" before being transferred to France in 2015.
Back to North York Moors table.