ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 25227
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| Date: | Friday 17 November 1944 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  Avro Anson Mk I |
| Owner/operator: | AN & BS RAF |
| Registration: | MG464 |
| MSN: | |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 4 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Grisedale Pike, Cumberland, England -
 United Kingdom
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Training |
| Departure airport: | RAF Jurby, Isle of Man |
| RAF Jurby |
In the evening of 17 November 1944 the Anson I MG464 of RAF Air Navigation & Bombing School left its base of Jurby on the Isle of Man for a night cross country flight. Little is currently known about the events of this night but it was probably returning to base when the aircraft found it over the Keswick area at around 2100 hrs. From both the pilot’s account of the incident (found in Michael Hurst’s book on Lakeland Air Accidents) and the evidence found on the ground in 2012, after the aircraft had flown over the village of Braithwaite and up Coledale in poor visibility, the pilot realised that he was flying too low to avoid high ground at the head of the valley so pulled the aircraft into a steep climbing turn.
The Anson flew into the steep scree covered slopes of Grisedale Pike, Braithwaite, above Force Crag mine near Keswick at around 21:15 hrs. Despite occurring on such a steep slope three of the four airmen survived the crash. The aircraft must have struck the steep side of Grisedale Pike with it’s belly for many of the crew to have survived the accident that followed. A head-on crash would have surely resulted in all the crew being killed.
Within two hours of the crash the RAF mountain rescue team at RAF Millom had been notified of the incident and set out for Keswick. The MRT at Millom notified RAF Silloth who depatched their medical team and station engineering officer. Three of the crew were found to be injured while the fourth sadly died before he could be found. The three survivors were brought off the mountain and taken to Keswick cottage hospital while the body of LAC Morgan was taken to Silloth before being returned to his family for burial.
Crew:
F/O (J/37452) Robert William BRADFORD (pilot) RCAF: Seriously injured.
F/Sgt (1399418) William Edward CRABER (WOp) RAFVR: Injured.
AC2 (1816115) R.T. MYATT (nav. U/T) RAFVR: Injured.
LAC (964106) Elwyn MORGAN (navigator U/T) RAFVR: Killed.
LAC Morgan is listed on CWGC as serving with 1 Squadron at the time of his death. 1 Squadron were a fighter squadron which, in the mind of this researcher, they would have little use in having trainee or newly trained navigators in their numbers, it seems likely that he had been serving with 1 Squadron as a member of ground crew and was possibly re-training to be aircrew at the time of this accident in the Lake District. His name is spelt Elwin on the deaths index. He is buried in Drefach Chapelyard, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
Richard Allenby visited the crash site in very poor weather in April 2012 with experienced mountaineer, and now air historian, Mr Ade Harris. He located the site in during a spell of excellent weather in March 2012. Both had made several failed attempts at trying to locate the site in the previous decade. Small parts were still at the crash site. Wreckage from the aircraft is scattered in small collections amongst the screes. Most of the aluminium parts had been damaged by fire, and all contained a number of brass hinges, a item familiar to a number of aircraft types. The fire could have been the result of the crashing aircraft or from the RAF salvage team burning sections of the aircraft on the site which they deemed un-worthy of recovering.
Sources:
http://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/table3.html]
http://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk/aircraft/mg464.html]
http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/crash_sites/lake-district/avro-anson-mg464-grisedale-pike/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Jurby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisedale_Pike
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=fr&lat=54.592000&lon=-3.241000&z=12
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 27-Sep-2008 01:00 | ASN archive | Added |
| 17-Nov-2015 20:50 | Laurent Rizzotti | Updated [Aircraft type, Total fatalities, Total occupants, Location, Phase, Nature, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Damage, Narrative] |
| 03-Feb-2020 11:31 | stehlik49 | Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Operator] |
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