On 19th August 1943 this 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit aircraft took off from Lindholme airfield to undertake a night training exercise but burst a tyre on the take off run. On landing at 01.13hrs the undercarriage leg with the flat tyre then collapsed and it skidded to a halt, a fire started and the aircraft was destroyed. The crew managed to get clear and escaped injury. The pilot listed below later completed his training and was posted to 12 Squadron, his crew at 12 Squadron may have been the same crew involved in this incident.
Pilot - Sgt Derek William Hanson Butterfield RAFVR (1457696), of Haxby, York.
Rest of crew - Names unknown.
Derek Butterfield completed his training and was later posted to 12 Squadron. He received a commission to the rank of P/O on probation on 1st October 1943 (162505). P/O Butterfield was killed on 3rd October 1943 flying Lancaster DV222 on Ops to Munich when the aircraft crashed in the Walchensee. He was just twenty years old and is commemorated in the Runnymede Memorial. The aircraft (or parts of it) was salvaged from the lake in Bavaria, Germany in 1952.
On 17th June 1942 this aircraft was with 83 Squadron based at Scampton. Unfortunately while the port engines were being started up the aircraft's undercarriage collapsed and a member of ground crew who was working on the aircraft was struck and killed LAC Horace Walter Palmer RAFVR (1155384). An investigation found that someone had placed the undercarriage selector lever in the up position earlier.
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