Wellington BK156 at Finningley airfield.

On 6th June 1943 this 18 Operational Training Unit aircraft was being flown on an early morning (but daylight) training flight. At 04.25hrs the aircraft was landing at Finningley with the pilot carrying out a practice landing with one engine shut down, unfortunately the undercarriage was not lowered and by the time a red signal was given to the aircraft to tell the crew not to land the aircraft was too low to have power applied to the engines and to climb away. The aircraft crash landed and was damaged.

Crew - Names unknown.

This aircraft was taken on charge by 428 Squadron on 2nd December 1942 as new before transfer to OTU later in 1943 but prior to 6th June 1943 when it sustained this damage on landing at Finningley. The aircraft was repaired and after another incident in November 1943 it was repaired again only to be ditched following a fire on a navigation training exercise on 23rd February 1944 off Workington, Cumbria.

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