Avro Tutor K3308 of the Duxford Station Flight crashed in the Vale of Edale on the 7th May 1940 while flying from Duxford near Cambridge to Kirkbride in Cumbria

 

Iain Hutchinson

Sergeant

Pilot

Uninjured

 

While flying from Duxford to Kirkbride the pilot became lost and low on fuel, this is despite the fact that he had actually flown less than half way to Kirkbride, so the aircraft should have used about half of its fuel (if filled to capacity, though more likely the pilot had planned to stop en-route to take on more fuel so took off with less fuel than he could carry). The pilot attempted to land in a field but his proved too small and on his final attempt deliberately ran the aircraft into trees along the side of the River Noe somewhere between Barber Booth and Edale End. Attempts to track down exactly where have so far proved fruitless.

Sergeant Iain Hutchinson had only a couple of months before been injured when he was shot down, during the Battle of Britain, over south London while flying a Supermarine Spitfire of No.222 Sqn. Before being injured he had scored three confirmed kills as well as three probable kills and one aircraft claimed as damaged. Later in the war he was shot down again while flying Mosquito P.R. Mk.I W4056, but that time he was over Norway and he and his navigator were captured, but not before his navigator had set fire to the wreckage of the aircraft. He retired from the RAF in 1957 at the rank of Squadron Leader and died at the age of 88 in 2007.