On this day in Yorkshire

March 1, 1952

Members of staff at The Retreat, a mental hospital at Heslington, York, yesterday watched a Meteor jet aircraft dive towards them after a mid-air collision, and crash on the recreation block of the hospital.

The pilot, Flying Officer J.S. Patterson, from Linton-on-Ouse RAF aerodrome, near York, was killed. The York coroner, Colonel Innes N. Ware, will open the inquest at York today.

Patients exercising in the recreation block had left the building 20 minutes before the crash. No one at the hospital was injured.

A member of the staff said: “It was a mercy that the plane did not travel another 20 yards, otherwise it would have crashed into the men’s ward.”

The second aircraft involved in the collision landed undamaged at Linton. This was the third mid-air collision between Meteor aircraft in the York area since January 7.