Miscellaneous information

On a trip to Mull in 2008, I climbed to the summit of Ben More to look for the remains of a Bristol Beaufort that crashed in 1942. I was unable to find anything but have discovered subsequently that the wreckage lies slightly to the north of the summit, in the northern corrie of Ben More at OS grid. ref. NM 525335.

At the Mull Museum in Tobermory, there is some information about this crash and some wreckage parts from the Bristol Beaufort, along with information and parts from another crash on the island, a Douglas C-47 Dakota which crashed on Beinn Talaidh in 1945. See photos below.

I climbed to the summit of Ben More near Crianlarich in May 2009 to look for any remains of either the Vickers Viscount that crashed on the mountain in 1973, or the Westland Wessex SAR helicopter that crashed near the summit during a rescue operation in the winter of 1987. I found some remains of the Viscount low down on the mountain (see my page about this site here) but could find no trace of the Wessex. The ACCS website says of the Wessex site on Ben More: 'Various wreckage parts remain onsite, including tail unit, hydraulic sections, landing gear, and rotor blades'. This may be a reference to photographs of the site taken in the aftermath of the crash, but does not appear to be true any more.

More information and photographs (including one showing the remains of the tail rotor asembly at the crash site) are on the ACSS website here.

Stuart Whittaker sent me a photograph of the scar left on the slopes of Ben More by the crash of the Wessex (see photo to the right). This photo was taken sometime in the summer of 1991, and it is possible that this scar is still visible on the mountain.

There is a memorial on the summit of Ben Ledi, about 20km to the south-east of Ben More, to a member of the Killin Mountain Rescue Team killed in the Wessex crash.

There is a news article on the BBC website about this crash here.

In July 2010 I visited the Cornalees Visitor Centre in Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park. There is a radial Cheetah engine in the car park of the visitors centre (see photos below) from an Avro Anson that crashed on the nearby Dunrod Hill in 1939. The other engine remains on the hill above the car park. The ACSS website has some information and photos of this site here.

I climbed to the summit of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean in Glen Carron in July 2010 to look for any wreckage from the wartime crash of a Whitley bomber in 1941 but only managed to find a small number of insignificant pieces in Coire an t-Seilich and on the north-western slopes of the summit (see photo to the left). I believe the majority of the wreckage was cleared in recent years. There is some information about the crash and the site on the PDAAR website here, and the WYACU website here.

In March 2011 I found some wreckage on the steep slopes below Bishop Hill in the Lomond Hills in Fife, at OS grid. ref. NO 18108 04419. The wreckage is located in an anonymous and secretive gully surrounded by farmland to the west of Bishop Hill at an altitude of about 280m, and consists of a small pile of what looks like rusted metal spars (see photo to the left).

Personal correspondence from Dave Priestley claims that this is the remains of a de Havilland Vampire (VV636 from RAF Leuchars 229 OCU) that impacted near the Carlin Maggie rock formation below the summit of Bishop Hill on 02/02/51, although I have been unable to find out any further information about this - a list of Vampire crashes here does not seem to list this crash, although the aircraft is listed as crashing on Bishop Hill here.

However, personal correspondence from both Neil Daniel and Alan Thomson claim that this wreckage is in fact main wing spar parts from a Hawker Hind (K6819 of 603 Squadron) which crashed here on 18/02/39. Hawker manufacturer stamps found by Neil Daniel on the wreckage, and the fact that the wreckage does not seem to bear any similarities to the de Havilland Vampire wreckage in the Lammermuir Hills to the south of Edinburgh (see my page about this site here), would seem to support this.

Personal correspondence from Charles Pease also confirms this wreckage is from a Hawker Hind - he writes: "I think that you will find that the wreckage is from the Hawker Hind K6819 from the 603 City of Edinburgh Squadron and piloted by my half-cousin, Ingram Edward Pease 1914-1939. He crashed in bad visibility and the local papers carried some commentary about the events of the 18th of February 1939, when it happened. Ingram was taken back to Yorkshire and in buried at St. Oswald's Church, Newton under Roseberry, between Guisborough and Great Ayton." Charles also sent me some images of press clippings about the crash which can be seen here.

Personal correspondence from Gary Nelson has informed me that there is more wreckage to the north of the Hawker Hind wreckage which may be from the Vampire. Photos he took of both sites can be seen on his website here and here.

Personal correspendence from both Stuart Whittaker and Dave Priestley has informed me of the crash of an RAF Hawker Hunter (WT721 of 764 Squadron) on Carn Liath (one of the summits that make up the Beinn a'Ghlo massif) on 22/9/1970. There are some reports that one of the wheels from the Hunter was visible on the hill at one time. Dave quotes a grid reference of NN 945695 for the location of this crash site in Coire na Saobhaidh but I have never encountered any wreckage parts despite several trips to the area. In June 2011 in this area of Beinn a'Ghlo I did however spot an unusual scar on the south-western slopes of the minor summit of Beinn Bheag (approximate grid ref. NN 947699) which may or may not be related to this crash (see photo to the right).

Also, one of the remote eastern corries of Beinn a'Ghlo above Loch Loch is apparently known locally as 'Aeroplane Corrie' due to a wartime crash in the vicinity. Personal correspondence from Alan Thomson informs me that this was the crash of a de Havilland Tiger Moth (T6577 from 11 EFTS) on 22/2/1945.

The site of the 1993 RAF Hercules crash is also near to Loch Loch to the east of Beinn a'Ghlo (see my page about this site here).

I received personal correspondence from Tom Ward about this crash, and he informed me that he had obtained what appear to be pieces of the crashed Hunter at an auction in Perth in 2019. The pieces had a label attached which read: "Remains of plane which crashed into Shinigag side of Carn Leath near the witches rock. About Sept 1968? Pilot killed." This information fits in with the area I was searching although what 'witches rock' refers to is still unknown, and the year of the crash is incorrect. He also sent me some photos of the pieces and the label.

A few interesting wreck sites in the Scottish mountains have had large wreckage parts removed in recent years:

• The engines from a Vickers Wellington near the summit of Carn Aosda were recovered in 1999 - see my page about this site here.
• The remains of an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley on the summit of Carn a' Choire Mhòir in the hills north of the A9 Slochd summit were cleared away by the Midland Aircraft Recovery Group in 2003. The ACSS website has photos of the recovery operation here.
• The remains of an Avro Lancaster that crashed on Conic Hill to the east of Loch Lomond were cleared away in 2006, photographs of the recovery operation can be seen on the ACSS website here.
• The remains of an Avro Lancaster in a remote location in the Monadliath hills about 10km north of Kingussie were cleared by the RAF in 2008 and 2009. A BBC website news article about the recovery of one of the propellors in 2008 can be seen here. Photographs of the operation to recover the rest of the wreckage in 2009 can be seen here.
• Personal correspondence and photographs from Mark Pringle informs me that (despite what it says on the ACSS website) the jet engines from the Gloster Javelin in the Moorfoot Hills south of Edinburgh have not been removed from this site. However, it does appear that the nose landing gear and wheel was removed by the Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum in 2011. See my page about this site here.

Colin Bain sent me a photo he took in 1968 of two Cheetah engines lying beside Loch Laidon on Rannoch Moor (see photo to the left). These engines were from an Airspeed Oxford that crashed in the loch in 1942. The engines were removed in 1979 and today very little remains at the site. The PDAAR website has some information about the crash and the wreck site here.

Inside the derelict El Alamein refuge (which lies on steep ground about 500m northeast of the summit of Cnap Coire na Spreidhe in the Northern Corries area of the Cairngorms) there has for several years been a piece of metal about a metre in length (see photo to the right), and perhaps other similar pieces as well. There has been some discussion about whether this is a section of debris from an aircraft crash and the metal does appear to be of a similar type to that used in aircraft being light (perhaps aluminium) and does have similar appearance to wreckage at other sites (scratched paintwork and bent metal). A discussion about this can be seen on the Winterhighland forum here.

In August 2014 I travelled to Skye and walked up to a location where a RAF Hawker Hunter crashed on the ridge of An Carnach, to the southeast of the mountain Blà Bheinn, in 1980. The book 'Aircraft Wrecks, the Walker's Guide' lists this site and mentions a memorial cross and a small amount of wreckage. The memorial cross to the pilot killed in the crash is on a large boulder at an altitude of about 320m above Loch Slapin (see photo to the left) but when I visited the site I was unable to find any trace of wreckage from the aircraft. The OS 10-figure grid ref. of the location is NG 55979 19291.

I received some personal correspondence from Ian Mckellar about this site. Ian was a member of the RAF Kinloss mountain rescue team and was involved in the cleanup operation after this crash. He states that the Hunter crashed into a rock, causing a large fracture in the rock (presumably where the memorial is now).

There is some more information about this crash here,  here and here.

In September 1994 A RAF Jaguar crashed in Glen Ogle near Killin, killing both the aircrew. There is no wreckage in the area, but a memorial has been built in the Glen to the two airmen. I took these photographs on a visit to the site in September 2014. The memorial is next to the A85, close to a parking area. The OS 10-figure grid ref. of the location is NN 55891 28460. Some information about the crash and the site can be seen here and here.

On the eastern slope of King's Seat Hill in the Ochils there is a memorial cairn to three spitfires that crashed in the area during the Second World War in 1943. Two of the pilots were killed, but one survived. There is no wreckage remaining at the site. I took these photographs of the memorial on a walk from Dollar Glen to the summit of King's Seat Hill in February 2015. A Facebook page has been created about this multiple crash which can be seen here.

In Craiglockhart, a quiet suburb of Edinburgh, there is a memorial that marks the spot where a RAF Wellington bomber crashed into an area of allotments during the Second World War, in 1942. All five of the airmen on the Lancaster were killed but no-one on the ground was injured or killed. An article about the crash in the Scotsman newspaper can be seen here, and details of the unveiling of the memorial in 2012 can be seen here. An article about the crash (including a photo of the wreckage) which appeared in a newspaper at the time can be seen here and here, in a posting from the Air Crash Investigation and Archaeology (ACIA) Facebook group.

Beyond Scotland - I climbed Snowdon in Wales in April 2010 via the Watkin Path on the south side of the mountain. This path goes through the Cwm Llan and not far from the path near the old workings of the Hafod y Llan mine at an altitude of 400m lie a small amount of remains of a Mosquito that crashed in the Cwm in 1948 (see photos below, OS grid. ref. SH 61099 52985). There are other small pieces of wreckage scattered in this area, there are some photographs of this wreckage on the 'GeoTopoi' blog here.