Alan Mitcheson was a national serviceman at Leeming, North Yorkshire, the night two planes came down on August 13, 1951.

A Wellington and a smaller Martinet had broken up over the village of Hudswell after they collided in mid-air, raining chunks of fuselage, wings and engines on to the ground below.

Witnesses had time to shout warnings along the high street before the first pieces of broken aircraft thudded to the ground.

But, when it was over, not a single house had been hit - Hudswell had escaped disaster, albeit by no more than feet.

Mr Mitcheson, now living in Silksworth, Sunderland, said: "They were on an airborne interception exercise, which meant they were supposed to be hunting each other when they crashed."

On that same night, Ronnie Brown was looking forward to a quiet evening as he cycled the three miles back home to Hudswell from work in Catterick.

But when the 26-year-old watched two military policemen climb a meadow gate into a country lane on the edge of Hudswell, he had an inkling something was wrong.

As he walked into his house, his wife's story was to drag him into the whirlwind of events which were to sear the evening into his memory.

Every house in the village was already buzzing with accounts of the mid-air collision between two RAF aircraft barely an hour before.

"The cockpit and the front part of the Wellington were in a field at one end of the village and the rear section had skimmed over the rooftops before suddenly dropping to the ground,'' said Mr Brown.

"Someone saw an engine crash into another field and the Martinet came down even further away. It was incredible nobody on the ground was killed as well,'' he said.

The grim task of removing eight bodies from the wreckage and laying them out in the village hall was completed, and local people realised just how lucky they had been.

But no one was as fortunate as teenage Air Training Corps cadet Derek Coates, of Middlesbrough. He survived - saved by war veteran and navigator Flight Lieutenant John Quinton, who gave him a parachute and pushed him clear of the Wellington before it hit the ground.

Now buried in the small cemetery in Leeming Village with two others killed in the crash, Flt Lt Quinton was posthumously awarded the George Cross for his bravery.

Mr Coates now lives in Australia.

On reflection, Mr Mitcheson says that 50 years ago flying was still dangerous and deaths were by no means rare.

"In the time I served at Leeming, the records I kept showed 17 were killed in accidents - which works out at around one a month," said Mr Mitcheson.