On 19th April 1951 this No.205 Advanced Flying School aircraft was being flown on a formation flying training exercise over the Tees Valley area when it ran out of fuel before the pilot could fly it back to land at either of the unit's airfields at either Middleton St.George or Neasham to land. He attempted to force land the aircraft at 10.07hrs near Hillilees Farm, Picton but crashed while doing so. The pilot is not believed to have been injured.
Pilot - Sgt John Quibell Picken RAF (3121380 / 5002410).
John Picken was later appointed to a commission in the reconstituted section of the RAFVR as P/O for five years on 18th January 1953. He was promoted to F/O on 18th July 1954 and extended his period of service by a further five years on 18th January 1958. Nothing after this date is known and it is assumed that he left the RAFVR after ten years of service. He was almost certainly born on the Isle of Wight in 1930 and died in Norwich in 2003.
Meteor VT103 was built to contract 6/ACFT/658 by Gloster Aircraft Ltd at Hucclecote and was initially delivered to the Holding Squadron in January 1948 before being issued to 66 Squadron at Linton on Ouse in May 1948. It was transferred to 43 Squadron at Tangmere on 11th February 1949 and then moved to 1 Squadron also at Tangmere at later date. It finally transfered to 205 AFS when the unit formed on 7th September 1950. Following this accident at Kirklevington it was initially declared Cat.B/FA but after further assessment it was Re.Cat.E/FA and struck off charge on 11th July 1951.
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