In the early morning of the 31st of March 1941 the pilot of this aircraft was undertaking a training flight, believed to have been a height test but during the flight the engine failed and caught fire in the air. Glycol was sprayed over the windscreen blocking the pilots vision and preventing a forced landing being carried out. The pilot baled out and landed reasonably safely, dispite loosing his flying boots. The aircraft crashed at 08.10hrs on Ravenseat Moor, to the east of Whitsundale, one of the smaller valleys at the head of Swaledale. The area was thought to have been covered in snow at the time of the crash and the pilot had to walk for help in his stocking feet, he eventually found his way to Ravenseat Farm before eventually returning to Usworth.

Pilot - P/O Frederick C Hill RAF (102987), aged ? of ? Slightly injured.

The pilot would see the war out and retire as a F/Lt on 12th February 1956.

The aircraft saw service with 32 Sqdn, 601 Sqdn, 4 FPP before being used by 55 OTU.

I located the crash site in November 2007 with fellow researchers Ken Reast, Albert Pritchard and Dick Barton and local farmer Robert Owen as our guide. He recalled finding some peices of metal whilst driving sheep in the area and the site was soon located through his memory. A further search yielded a handful of peices; some containing Hurricane part numbers, the remains of a flying instrument and a couple of .303 shell cases. We would like to thank the Owen family of Ravenseat for their help, quad-bike transport to the crash site and for their hospitality on our return. The day was a very wet one and good photographs were not possible! The photograph above shows the area where we found our peices, there could well be more in the boggy area in the foreground.

One of the peices with a Hawker aircraft company inspection stamp.

This peice is exactly the same as one I found at one of the Hurricanes which crashed on Scafell, in the Lake Disrict.