Jet Provost T.3 XN583 near Pannal.
On Thursday, 17th September 1964 this No.7 Flying Training School aircraft took off from Church Fenton at 15.30hrs with the pilot tasked with undertaking a general handling training exercise. He was permitted to fly this exercise in the Harrogate area but it should have been flown at a much higher height than it subsequently was. The aircraft was seen flying in the Harrogate area for about twenty minutes and while undertaking low level aerobatics the aircraft struck trees and crashed into the bank of a stream below Hill Top Farm, Pannal. The aircraft broke up on impact and scattered wreckage for some distance up a hillside, through trees and up onto a field above. The pilot was killed. It has been suggested elsewhere on the internet that he had been undertaking low level aerobatics in the area where his girlfriend lived but from the available documentation I can find no proof of this.
Pilot - P/O Alan David Dennis RAF (4232148), aged 22. Buried Kirkby Wharfe Cemetery, Yorkshire.
The pilot's gravestone at Kirkby Wharfe cemetery. Alan Dennis was from Reading, Berkshire and was Cranwell trained. As Cadet Pilot he received a commission in the RAF on 28th February 1964.
I was fortunate to be invited to assist locate this crash site with air historians Eric Barton, Ken Reast and Albert Pritchard in June 2007. They had made contact with a local gentleman, Mr Thomas Clayton, who farmed the land around the crash site at the time of the crash and had arranged the visit with him. Small fragments were located confirming the location. One larger piece found by Mr Clayton some years ago was also looked at (which I failed to photograph). We would like to thank Mr Clayton for allowing and arranging our visit and for sparing his time with us. The photograph above shows the three on what we believe was the location where the aircraft crashed with it then being scattered up the field to the left of the photograph. The photograph below is where we believed it crashed.
A collection of smaller fragments of the aircraft together with a slightly larger control cable pulley Eric found in the stream bed.
