Spitfire X4662 near Brompton, Northallerton.
On 27th July 1941 the pilot of this 131 Squadron aircraft took off from Catterick at 11.35hrs to practice aerobatics at 15,000ft over the area to the east of
the airfield. Twelve minutes later and while over Northallerton the aircraft's starboard wing broke off in the air, the aircraft then crashed near
Brompton, Northallerton and sadly the pilot was killed. The wing had broken off because of the strain put on the airframe during a 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 pieces of perspex. When this webpage was updated in 2018 a housing development was due to be built across the crash site, I last updated the webpage in April 2022 and the latest GoogleEarth imagery shows this to have happened.
Pilot - Sgt Stephen Harold Vavasour-Durell RAFVR (1257744), aged 24, of Hampstead, London. Buried Catterick Cemetery, Yorkshire.
Stephen Vavasour-Durell's gravestone in Catterick Cemetery.
Historians Ken Reast, Albert Pritchard and Eric Barton sought permission from the land owner to search for surface fragments of the aircraft and located small remains the crash site in Summer 2008 to confirm the location. This photograph shows small fragments retained by Eric that have since been passed to me to find a home for.
Spitfire X4662 was built to contract B.19713/39 by Vickers Armstrong's (Supermarine) Ltd. at Woolston and was first test flown on 1st
November 1940 and was flown to 9 MU at Cosford on 8th November 1940. On 20th December 1940 it was taken on charge by 611 Squadron at Rochford
and on 27th January 1941 it moved with the unit to Hornchurch. On 15th March 1941 it transferred to 485 Squadron at Driffield and as the result
of a forced landing near Market Weighton in April 1941 Cat.A/FA damage was recorded (an incident detailed on this website). It was dismantled
and returned to Driffield for repair and was back on charge with 485 Squadron on 25th May 1941. On 25th June 1941 it was transferred to 61 OTU
at Heston then on 17th July 1941 it transferred to 131 Squadron at Catterick. On 27th July 1941 Cat.E2/FA damage was recorded when the aircraft
crashed near Northallerton. It was struck off charge on 1st August 1941 when the paperwork went through.
