MF509

Wellington MF509 of No. 22 Operational Training Unit, based at Wellesbourne Mountford, was on a night cross-country exercise on 20 November 1944 when its starboard Hercules XVI engine developed trouble and the aircraft ran into icing in shower cloud. Unable to hold height on the port engine alone, it crashed into Garreg Goch (grid SN817168) in the western Brecon Beacons, about 520 m above the upper Swansea Valley, killing all six Canadian crew. They were buried with full military honours at Chester (Blacon) Cemetery. Much wreckage still lies scattered across the remote site, where a memorial plaque now stands; the families learned the full circumstances only some sixty years later, after a 2005–06 collaboration between McGill University, Montreal, and people of the Swansea Valley.