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The undercarriage of the Avro York was a weak feature and MW198, of No 51 Squadron, was unable to lock down its wheels on this particular occasion. It circled the airport for about three hours in order to use up spare fuel before making a superb belly landing. Fortunately, this delay provided the emergency services with time to muster every available piece of equipment and personnel, part of which can be seen in the first photograph, waiting for the crunch. The pilot made a superb landing but, without intending to underestimate his skill, the York's flat bottom must surely have provided the perfect answer to this kind of flying! It is not known who any of the people are in these photographs, with the exception of the gentleman on the extreme right in the fourth photograph. He was Sqdn Ldr Singh, station engineering officer. If anyone else can be identified, we would like to know.
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