Halifax NA605 at Burn airfield.
During the evening of 9th October 1944 this 578 Squadron aircraft was to have been flown on an operational flight to bomb Bochum. On take off at Burn airfield at 17.35hrs the pilot felt a loss of power on at least one of the engines and also noticed that the air speed indicator appeared reading low. He attempted to reduce power to the engines to attempt to stop the aircraft but it swung, he then braked to avoid another aircraft but on soft and slippy ground the brakes had no effect. The aircraft ran off the airfield and across the railway track the ran past the east side of Burn airfield (now the East Coast Main Line). Unfortunately some rail trucks were in a siding in the path of the aircraft and they were badly damaged. The aircraft came to rest with fairly serious damage, initially assessed as repairable Cat.B but later re-assessed as Re-Cat.E and it was written off. A faulty fuel pipe had caused a restricted flow to an engine that saw the initial engine problem. The 578 Squadron orb does not mention this incident. While the crew list was probably the pilot's regular crew without seeing this in the squadron records to confirm it I have not included it. The incident is mentioned in a railway occurance list.
Pilot - P/O William Wilson RAFVR (177661).
Crew - Names unconfirmed.