On board were four crew members: pilot Pilot Officer Eric Cyril Maskell (19), Canadian navigator Pilot Officer Henry Law (26), and two gunners, Flight Sergeant Peter Francis Barclay Orwin (19), and Sergeant George Albert Cowell (21) . The route ran south of Groningen. Shortly after midnight it came in the sights of a German night fighter somewhere, a Dornier DO 215-B5 with Oberleutnant Ludwig Becker at the controls. He was a highly skilled pilot, and would later be highly decorated for his many victories before he himself was killed in action north of Schiermonnikoog in early 1943. He probably took down the Hampden over Haren without much effort. Only the 19-year-old pilot survived the crash.
The Hampden came flat on the water. The pilot landed with his parachute in the fields east of the Hoornse Diep. One of his gloves was found in the garden at Rijksstraatweg 32. The miller (Gardener) of Molen De Helper on Hoornsedijk got up around 5 a.m. and found a displaced kite near his house with his hands in the air: 'English', said that one. Tuinman and his wife gave the man food and warm drink and considered whether they could hide him from searching Germans. After consultation with a 'good' police officer at the police post in Helpman, it was decided to have the pilot picked up by the police, so that they could hand him over to the German authorities as a prisoner of war. In the first hours after the crash, civilians searched for injured people. They found only the bodies of the crew. The burials took place shortly afterwards at the Eshof with military honors. The 19-year-old pilot (Maskell) survived the war and later started a family.