Air Accident

The Ipswich Meteor 

On the 26 October 1953 a flight of 3 Gloster Meteor 8 aircraft of 263 squadron Royal Air Force based at Wattisham, took off for what should have been a routine airborne interception exercise with a United States Air Force Boeing B-29.  The three Meteors, flying in close battle formation, sighted the target aircraft flying at about 20,000 feet almost overhead Ipswich, Suffolk.  They were well positioned for a starboard quarter attack and the Flight Commander, piloting Meteor WH467, transmitted that he was going to engage.  The other two pilots held off awaiting their commander’s call to attack and witnessed their Flight Commanders pass at the B-29 and saw him turn away from the bomber and descend to port.  They then requested permission to commence their attack but received no reply.  After several unsuccessful attempts to raise their Flight Commander they assumed that he had suffered a radio failure and made the decision to complete the exercise. They each attacked the target aircraft independently and then having completed the engagement they formed up as a pair and returned to Wattisham where they were surprised to learn that their Flight Commander had crashed.

WH467 had, after passing the B 29, continued descending in a wide ever-steepening spiral until it stuck the ground.  The pilot had made no attempt to abandon the aircraft.

The Meteor impacted in the rear garden of 14 Moore Road on the Whitton Estate, Ipswich, striking the ground with its starboard wing tip at a steep angle and at high speed.  It then commenced to cart wheel onto the nose and port engine.  This motion continued until the entire airframe had completely disintegrated.  A portion of 
the airframe and both engines were projected forward and struck the rear of Nos. 14 and 12 Moore Road causing considerable damage.  The majority of the wreckage was contained in a fan shaped area of about 300 yards damaging property in adjacent Coleridge and Stratford Road where several small fires broke out.  The pilot was killed on impact but miraculously only two people on the ground were injured although a dog, which had been in the back garden of 14 Moore Road was killed.  A six-year-old boy, who had been playing in the garden of number 12, was found uninjured under the shattered wreckage of a garden shed.

So what did go wrong?

The full story behind the loss of Meteor WH467 and the subsequent findings of the Board of Enquiry are examined in detail in the first of a series of short publications entitled Aircraft Accident and now available from Aeronautical Archive.  Details of how to order your fully illustrated copy of this and other Aeronautical Archive publications are available at Publications.

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