Date:	Sunday 13 April 1941
Time:	21:20
Type:	Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I
Owner/operator:	96 Sqn RAF
Registration:	N1766
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Rowlee Pasture, West of Derwent Reservoir, Derbyshire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:	RAF Cranage, Middlewich, Cheshire
Destination airport:

Narrative:
Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I N1766, 96 Squadron RAF: Written off (destroyed) when crashed at Rowlee Pasture, High Peak Estate, West of the Derwent Reservoir, Derbyshire. Both crew bailed out and survived

On 13 April (1941) Flight Lieutenant Paul Watling Rabone RNZAF and his air gunner had had to bail out of his Defiant at 3,000 feet over the Peak District in Derbyshire after engine failure. The aircraft's Merlin engine suffering a major coolant leak and eventual seizure. The two crew were carrying out a night air test from Cranage near Middlewich in Cheshire. The radio receiver suffered a partial failure which prevented the two crew from communicating properly with their base, this was followed by the aircraft’s Merlin engine suffering a major coolant leak and eventual seizure. At this point the two airmen abandoned the aircraft.

The two men came down not far from the crash site but in the darkness walked in different directions with one walking out to Alport and the other to the Derwent valley. Flying Officer Ritchie’s first encounter with the farmer whose door he arrived at was recorded in the 96 Squadron Operations Record Book.

Suspicious farmer: “Where have you come from?”
Parachutist: “I’ve just left my aeroplane up there”
Farmer (still more suspicious): “Are you British?”
Parachutist (A Scot): “Oh! Yes!”

According to an article in Air Britain's Aeromilitaria Magazine, the following is an account of the last flight of Defiant N1766:

"Flt/Lt Paul Rabone’s sixth and last parachute jump occurred on April 13th, 1941. He was over the Derbyshire hills flying a Defiant, when engine trouble developed. These hills lie 1,800 feet above sea-level, and Rabone was at 3000 feet. His gunner got out immediately, but he had some difficulty in extricating himself, and he Defiant had dropped about 1000 feet by the time he was able to leave, with the result that the parachute had barely opened before he reached the ground.

Air-Britain’s ‘Crash Sites’ series in its Aeromilitaria magazine confirms a bale out from 96 Squadron Defiant N1766 occurring at 21:20 hrs on 13 April 1941, and the aircraft coming down 2 miles west of Derwent Valley, at Rowlee Pasture.

96 Squadron ORB also confirms event: Flt/Lt Rabone (Pilot)and F/O Ritchie (A/G.)...the crew came down on a mountain about a mile west of Derwent Reservoir in Derbyshire. The Defiant buried itself in the top of the mountain, while the Pilot found one slope and the gunner the other. They went over the side at about 21.20 hours in blackness and cloud."

Crew:
Flight Lieutenant Paul Watling Rabone - RZNAF (pilot)
Flying Officer John Ritchie (Air Gunner)

F/Lt Rabone was killed while serving with No.23 Squadron on the 24th July 1944 and was buried at Hotton War Cemetery near Liege in Belgium. F/O Ritchie's subsequent service is currently undocumented though it is known that he remained in the RAF postwar, retiring on 20th January 1959 as a Squadron Leader. Ritchie died in 1996 in Greenock, Renfrewshire.

During 1980 the aircraft’s Merlin engine was recovered from the crash site and after it had been cleaned was put on display at the Museum of Science and Industry’s Air and Space gallery in Manchester. It has since been transferred to the Nightfighter Preservation Trust at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington where it is on display in the Engine Hall.

1. Royal Air Force Aircraft N1000-N9999 (James J Halley, Air britainm 1977)
2. Aircraft Wrecks: The Walker's Guide : Historic Crash Sites on the Moors and Mountains of the British Isles By Nick Wotherspoon, Alan Clark, Mark Sheldon
3. 96 Squadron ORB for October 1940 to December 1943: National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR/27/764: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2503402
4. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR81/
5. http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/crash_sites/peak-district/boulton-paul-defiant-n1766-rowlee-pasture/
6. http://aircrashsites.co.uk/boulton-paul-defiant-n1766-on-rowlee-pasture-peak-district/
7. https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?a=0&hob_id=1434810
8. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pasujoba44/5475616941
9. https://peakwreckhunters.blogspot.com/2007/09/defiant-mki-n1766.html
10. https://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/RabonePW.htm
11. https://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/RitchieJM.htm
12. https://peakery.com/rowlee-pasture-united-kingdom/

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
14-Jan-2011 13:20	ThW	Added
14-Jan-2011 13:42	ThW	Updated [Registration, Location, Departure airport, Source, Damage, Narrative]
12-Jan-2012 13:04	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Total occupants, Departure airport, Source, Narrative]
23-Aug-2013 17:54	JINX	Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Narrative]
24-Aug-2014 14:50	Digger	Updated [Operator, Departure airport]
17-Oct-2019 17:55	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Total fatalities, Other fatalities, Location, Source, Narrative]