MEM25582 - Air crash site near to Hill Farm (Monument)

A Hawker Hunter F6 XG131 aircraft crashed very close to Hill Farm on the afternoon of Friday 19th March 1971. [1] The plane was part of a sortie of two aircraft of the same type, undertaking a fairly typical training and orienteering mission across country. They took off from RAF Chivenor, near Barnstaple, Devon. The weather on the day was not inclement, but thick cloud cover obscured the position of the planes, and the pilots became disoriented. They began to descend to try and break out of the cloud cover, but the low lying clouds made the descent very hazardous, taking the planes too close to the hillside. One of the planes, piloted by 24 year old Singaporean pilot Second Lieutenant Siow Yang of the Republic of Singapore Air Force, slammed into a field adjacent to Hill Farm. Yang was killed immediately on impact. The second plane managed to avoid the hill, narrowly missing the telegraph wires present in the field. The owners of Hill Farm, Mr and Mrs Westcott, were both present during the crash and witnessed first a large piece of debris falling into the farmyard at around 1:30pm. A clean up operation recovered the body of Second Liutenant Yang, and much of the debris, although a source suggests some fragments may remain on site. [2]