Halifax LW383 at Rufforth airfield.
On the night of 30th / 31st January 1944 this aircraft was one of ten belonging to 420 Squadron that were flown on a Bullseye exercise that involved the crews undertaking a long night cross country navigation exercise with a combined bombing exercise. Nine of the aircraft returned safely to base at Tholthorpe without incident. The crew of Halifax LW383 however believed that the aircraft had run out of fuel as the gauges were showing nil while in the Rufforth area. They made a "Darky" radio request for help to be given assistance to land. Rufforth responded but on the approach to land there the pilot forgot to unlock the undercarriage. Believing there was an undercarriage failure a belly landing was made at 00.55hrs but the aircraft completely missed the runways. It begun it's landing on the side of one of the runways, ran through a hedge and came to rest beyond the airfield perimeter track across the Askham Richard road. Two of the runways at Rufforth were already closed because reconstruction work was underway, the other was partially complete prior to this incident but then became obstructed. The Rufforth station orb scribe seemed less than impressed with the whole event that made his airfield unservicable.
Pilot - F/O Howard Wray Rice RCAF (J/21369).