Crash Site...

[jbx]

High mountain areas are sometime a place for tragedy.
Last week-end a friend & I went to a place where a plane crash took place 66 years ago.

It was a rather big plane : an Avro York, which was a British transport airplane derived from the famous Lancaster.
See the Avro York Wikipedia page

Among the ten casualties there was a rather big brass : the Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory.
He was one of the most senior British officers and the most senior RAF officer to be killed in the Second World War and also the brother of the famous Mallory who died while attempting to win the Everest.
See the Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory Wikipedia page.

The cash occured during november 1944 and was due to a very bad weather.
The wreckage was discovered only in june 1945 by a shepperd, due to the remote and high altitude of the site.
All bodies took a final resting place in the nearest village cementary.

We went to the crash area after a long & steep walk and found it littered with many artifacts - we did not remove any. A commemorative plate with the crew & passenger names was placed in 2004.

Here are some pictures :














oil tank, located behind the engine


electrical connector


main landing gear (same as the Lanc)


a strange fix on an aluminium hose with a metal plate (broken) for electical continuity


main landing gear (same as the Lanc)




engine shaft to the propeller

[catsbum]

Your a Lucky man to visit the site. Saw a TV Doc on it not long ago. That plane must have gone down at some speed.

cats

[chrislarkin]

Close by here we have our own crash sites on Mount Brandon (Catsbum, you and I rode part the way up there during RTT08). You can still see pieces of the various planes up there. It is not a particularly high mountain so it seems strange that it attracted so many impacts.

More details here.

[stu]

Chris, have you been into the flying boat museum at Foynes? There are pieces of the wreckage there.

[chrislarkin]

No. It's somewhere I have been meaning to visit. Nice little Sunday bimble if it ever stopped raining. 'Bout equal distance from both of us. Could be a coffee and cake meet!

[stu]

<!--quoteo(post=171152:date=Fri 23rd Jul 2010, 03:32 PM:name=TeDeum)-->QUOTE(TeDeum @ Fri 23rd Jul 2010, 03:32 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->No. It's somewhere I have been meaning to visit. Nice little Sunday bimble if it ever stopped raining. 'Bout equal distance from both of us. Could be a coffee and cake meet!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Could well be. Nice road down the estuary for me. Trouble is, Mrs Stu wants to see your Serow... so we may have to travel all the way to Kerry ...

[chrislarkin]

<!--quoteo(post=171384:date=Sun 25th Jul 2010, 04:10 PM:name=stu)-->QUOTE(stu @ Sun 25th Jul 2010, 04:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->Could well be. Nice road down the estuary for me. Trouble is, Mrs Stu wants to see your Serow... so we may have to travel all the way to Kerry ...<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

You know where to find us. Just give us a call first so we can be out when you arrive!

[slartybartfarst]

The Pennine Hills above Manchester are littered with crashed aircraft. Been to several sites. Allsorts for Avro Anson to Super Sabre, Meteors, Liberator and a B29, pretty much all military. There used to be a lot of big bits but souvenir hunters have depleated the remains of the more accessible ones. In the days before accurate radar and instrumentation a lot of planes simply failed to gain enough height or got lost in poor weather. A lot of good brave men lost their lives on the those Moors.

Chris

[catsbum]

Who's got the link to those P38's that ran out of fuel and got buried under the ice? I love this sort of thing

[slartybartfarst]

About ten years ago there was a documentary on a bunch of guys who risked there lives to repair a B29 that had landed on the ice in the Arctic 50 years before. Having got it something like airworthy they prepared it for a flight to a proper airfield when the auxilliary generator caught fire and the whole aircraft burned before their eyes. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif[/img] A real shame.

Chris

[steveearwig]

B29 - Frozen In Time (it's on yewtoob). The strip of ice they used was too rough and shook the aux engine loose, which caught fire. The worst thing about it was the chief engineer quite literally worked himself to death.

[zardoz]

http://p38assn.org/glacier-girl.htm

Here's one of them.


[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4OthQ3td_E&feature=player_embedded#"]

You tube film, whole heap of links on that page to "Lost Squadron" and others. My tip, make a big flask of coffee or cocoa first. You just know you're going to get lost for a few hours.

[slartybartfarst]

<!--quoteo(post=171662:date=Mon 26th Jul 2010, 09:58 PM:name=danceswithmopeds)-->QUOTE(danceswithmopeds @ Mon 26th Jul 2010, 09:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><!--quotec-->My tip, make a big flask of coffee or cocoa first. You just know you're going to get lost for a few hours.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Would that be on Facetube or on the moors? [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img]

Chris