TRIBUTE has been paid to a Canadian air crew which died during a Second World War training flight.

Covid restrictions meant the annual service at the site where the plane crashed – off Tewitt Lane, above Oakworth, Keighley – couldn't take place in its usual format this year.

But wreaths and flowers have been placed at the memorial this weekend, with social distancing being observed.

Among those paying their respects today – when the service would normally have taken place – were West Yorkshire Deputy Lieutenant Robin Wright, Keighley MP Robbie Moore and councillors Rebecca Poulsen and Russell Brown.

Janet Armstrong – from Oakworth Village Society, which oversees the commemoration – laid a wreath on behalf of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

She also gave a few words of thanks and recited the epitaph, 'They shall grow not old', from the poem For the Fallen.

Wreaths had been placed earlier in the weekend by West Yorkshire Police, John Sugden of Oakworth Village Society and Keighley's town mayor, Councillor Peter Corkindale.

"For obvious reasons the commemoration was greatly scaled down from the usual ceremony but we felt it was still important to remember those who gave their lives 77 years on," said a spokesman.

Wellington Bomber BK 387 crashed into the hillside at Tewitt Lane in fog on January 2, 1944, killing all six crew members – the pilot Warrant Officer Class 2 Ernest Israel Glass, navigator Flying Officer James Justin McHenry, wireless operator and air gunner Warrant Officer Class 2 Jack Henfrey, air bomber Warrant Officer Class 2 James Edwin Dalling and air gunners, sergeants Norman Willard Crawford and Emery Savage.

A memorial stone was unveiled at the site in 1993.