Mustang AL998 at Kippax.

During the afternoon of 27th October 1942 the pilot of this 169 Squadron undertook an aerobatics training flight. He took off from Church Fenton airfield at 15.25hrs and climbed through a layer of thick cloud to 8000 feet and begun the exercise. He put the aircraft into a slow roll to the right the engine and when it was nearly out of the roll the engine cut out. He levelled out and while gliding down through cloud attempted to restart the engine. The cloud base was at around 3000 feet and once below it he began to search for a suitable field to make a forced landing in. At 1000 feet he selected a suitable field in the Kippax area. At 15.45hrs he made a forced landing near Kippax with the wheels retracted but the aircraft bounced across the field and he could not stop in the distance available. The aircraft ran through a hedge and came to rest badly damaged. The pilot received a number of injuries including a fractured skull as a result of the accident and was admitted to Fullwood Hospital, Sheffield but survived.

Pilot - F/O Richard Vivian Garton (47447).

Mustang AL998 was built to British Purchasing Corporation Contract A-1493 by North American Aviation at Inglewood, Dallas, USA and was shipped to the UK, arriving in April 1942. It was transported by road to No. 1 A.A.U. at Speke for assembly and testing. In late June 1942 it was taken on charge by 169 Squadron, who were based at Twinwood Farm at the time and who then moved to Doncaster on 27th June 1942. As a result of the incident at Kippax on 27th October 1942 Cat.E2/FA damage was the result of the damage assessment and it was written off.

In October 2009 historians Albert Pritchard, Eric Barton and Ken Reast traced a witnesses to this incident. The aircraft first touched down in a field to the east but crossed Sandgate Lane and came to rest in what is now an area of allotment plots north of Sandgate Terrace. With permission of the landowner of the field and tennant of the allotment they located small fragments of the aircraft on the surface to confirm the crash location. The field of the initial touch-down is probably the other end of a very large field in which Mosquito TV968 crashed in November 1946.

Richard Garton was born in the Huddersfield area of Yorkshire in 1916. He was formally in the Royal Artillery reaching the rank of Lieutenant prior to 29th November 1941, he transferred to the RAF and was granted a commission in the RAF as P/O on probation (emergency) on 29th November 1941. He was promoted to F/O (war subs) on 1st October 1942 and F/Lt (war subs) on 29th November 1943. He survived the War and died in the Halifax area in 1985.

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