Proctor III G-AGWB near North Cowton.
On Saturday, 5th August 1967 this aircraft was one of thirty three aircraft entered into a one hundred mile air race as part of an airshow held at Middleton St.George (Teesside) airfield. The race was the second round of the National Air Races which would have seen the winner qualify for the King's Cup Air Race later in the month. The course was a thirty three mile triangluar route which had to be flown three times. The Proctor was entered into the race by its owner who was the wife of a serving fighter jet pilot who lived at Commondale, on the North Yorks Moors. She piloted it during the race and her husband went along for the ride. The race was due to start at 15.30hrs. While flying at around 200 feet near Scotch Corner and during the second lap of the race a con rod punched through the engine casing which caused the engine to fail. A fire also then broke out in engine bay. The pilot made a swift forced landing but collided with a fence at Mount Pleasant Farm at Dalton Gates, a mile north east of North Cowton. Both the occupants managed to scramble clear seconds before the aircraft exploded but both sustained burn injuries with the pilot the most seriously injured. They were initially taken to the nearest farmhouse before being transferred to the Darlington Memorial Hospital. Earlier in the day the passenger had flown a Lightning as part of the flying display at Middleton St.George. The eventual winner of the race at Teesside appears to have been James Cecil Baring (Lord Revelstoke) in Rollason Beta G-ATLY.
Pilot - Mrs Eleanor Dawn Turley. Injured.
Passenger - F/Lt Alan Turley RAF (4082627). Injured.
Alan Turley had crashed Lightning XM993 at Middleton St.George on 12th December 1962 and had also ejected from 23 Squadron Lightning XP760 off Northumblerland on 24th August 1966. He had also crashed a smaller aeroplane earlier than the North Cowton incident but details of this are not known. He was awarded the Air Force Cross on 1st January 1968. On 19th October 1987 he was killed when Beech 200 Super King Air G-MDJI crashed into Otley Chevin while on a flight from Teesside to Leeds-Bradford airfield.
The aircraft was own by Eleanor Turvey, of "The Woodlands", Commondale, Whitby and carried it's former RAF markings "LZ734". Alan Turley had flown it when he won the Manx Air Derby in 1965.