Halifax LK734 at Leeming airfield.
During the afternoon of 2nd January 1944 this 429 Squadron aircraft was to be flown on a cross country training exercise but after becoming airborne from Leeming at around 16.30hrs the undercarriage would not retract. The pilot managed to climb the aircraft to 1,100 feet but the flight engineer then noticed the fuel pressure warning light to the port inner engine was illuminating. A fire then broke out in the port inner engine and even though the crew shut down the engine, feathered the propeller and operated the Graviner fire extinguisher system the fire would not go out. Unfortunately the propeller then unfeathered and began to rotate, fanning the flames. With the fire spreading to the other port engine and unable to maintain full control of the aircraft, the pilot attempted to reach Leeming airfield. It ended up striking a tree, two houses and a shelter during the crash landing on the station playing field, behind the married quarters, on the edge of the airfield at 17.03hrs. The aircraft was badly damaged but all on board escaped injury. A manufacturing fault on a fuel pipe assembly was almost certainly the cause of the initial fire.
Pilot - F/O Harry Lyle Heimbecker RCAF (J/9353).
Navigator - F/Sgt J A S MacDonald RCAF (R/151905).
Air Bomber - F/Sgt Joseph Hector Gaeten Senecal RCAF (R/125651).
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner - Sgt J S Martin RAFVR (1366175).
Flight Engineer - Sgt W E Morton RCAF (R/57899).
Air Gunner - Sgt W A Wright RAFVR (1796396).
Air Gunner - Sgt John Bruce Ewen RCAF (R/193158).