Blenheim Mk.I L6800 of No.2 School of Army Co-operation, RAF, crashed while attempting to force land near Monyash on the 17th November 1940
| George Frederick Kilburn | Pilot Officer | Pilot | Survived |
The pilot was on a cross country navigation flight from Andover to Desford near Leicester and back to Andover when he became lost in poor visibility, he had wandered some 45 miles NNW of Desford in bad weather, a mistake easily explained by only having 2 hours experience in the Blenheim and 10 hours of instrument flying.
P/O Kilburn decided to land the aircraft with the undercarriage retracted and choose one of the many fields near Monyash. He over shot the intended field and struck a stone wall and some telegraph wires before crash landing in a nearby field.
We have carried out a search of the field in which the aircraft is believed to have crashed but did not find any evidence of the aircraft.
L6800 was destroyed on the 25th July 1941 when the aircraft crashed on the boundary of Upwood airfield, the pilot, Sergeant Alan Hewitt Abbott Johnson, was the only person onboard and was killed in the crash.
