This is still the only site with GPS verified, precise and accurate grid references for all of the peak district crash sites where any wreckage remains. We also have many in Wales, Yorkshire, and Bowland.
We are still active, and are in the process of updating the site, which has been rather inactive for a few years due to work commitments.
Had a day out in Wales with Matt ZX last Friday. Weather report was filthy, but as it turned out, overly pessimistic. Weather was pretty much standard autumn mountain weather.
After visiting the mixed Anson and Ventura wreckage over the other side of Fynnon Lloer, we went up the stream to see the usually impossible to miss Cessna engine. No sign of it.
The one other walker we met all day on top said he'd seen it about a year ago. Got out my old high-accuracy coordinates. My sticks are very close to where it used to be. Definitely no sign of it.
It's probably in some saddo's garage then, though there's a small chance it has merely been moved, as comments on previous posts suggest it has been before.
A quick outing with Matt ZX in nice walking weather to various hills outside Llangollen yielded 3/3 target sites in fairly short order. First of the day was the Oxford site on Moel y Gamelin.
Fragments of wreckage are scattered throughout the scree. The pic is a closeup of a bit with inspection stamp and markings which I'd like to say prove it's an Airspeed Oxford, but it looked slightly questionable at first. A part number starting with 10 is good, but the inspection stamp should ideally be AS for Airspeed. Mat however tells me that the RECL stamp is from Royston Engineering, who made spares for a number of manufacturers including Airspeed and DeHaviland.
Location: SJ 17470 46623
This site on Moel Y Gaer is unique in my experience in having more bits of clothing related debris like this US great seal embossed brass button than bits of aircraft, by virtue of its cargo. Which is surprising considering these buttons go for £3.50 each on eBay.
Location: SJ 16779 46393
These bits of armour plate were the highest fragments of any size we found. We are told they come from the crew's seats.
Other internet sites claim that only a few scraps of armour plate remain, but that is clearly not the case, as we have shown in this series of posts, which themselves only show perhaps 25% of what is there.
What happened to the remainder? We have little to add to David Earl's account.
Location: SH 63095 60149
This is the most upstream collection we found, mostly comprising undercarriage parts.
Location: SH 61086 52993
This undistinguished looking item around 100mm in diameter was our only reward for getting rained on for five hours in the vicinity of the Watkin Path to Snowdon's peak, on a very wet Bank Holiday Monday.
If you zoom in, you can see it is marked J98978/1. The "98" prefix makes it a bit of a Mosquito, specifically we believe Mosquito TV982, which crashed here in 1948 as a result of severe turbulence. We think it is a rubber damper from an undercarriage leg.
We had to beat a hasty retreat shortly after finding this, as Mick's fags had got wet. All other possible emergencies pale into insignificance next to the spectre of nicotine deprivation.
We will be back for the rest in the near future.
Location: SH 61119 52762
A day out with Matt ZX to see if we could find anything from the Marauder crash site on Y Garn yesterday.
The photo shows what we believe to be the impact point of this medium bomber of the Western face of Y Garn, Snowdonia. The parallel lines of scree are deepish scrapes which have filled over time with small stones. The site location was proven correct by the presence of some distinctive bits of aircraft aluminium, as shown in the entry below.
David Earl reports that the aircraft broke in two from here, with one bit staying with one of the crew on the Llanberis side, and the remainder of the crew and 'plane going over the edge to break up and scatter in the valley below. An old-time wreckhunter has written to tell us that by the early 60s only the props lay on this side of the hillside, the wing sections seemingly having been pushed over the cliff.
Using telescopes and binoculars from the summit, we established that the undercarriage and other bits not weighed in for scrap by the local magpies are still present. We will return by the Eastern route to get photos and accurate locations for the scattered wreckage on a later trip.
Location of impact point: SH 62842 59856
Location of undercarriage:SH 631 602
Six straight hours of being rained on whilst tramping through a bog yielded only one find yesterday, the crash site and this memorial to the crew of a bomber downed (for reasons still unknown) north of Fan Foel in the Brecon Beacons.
We failed to find anything at the Moel Feity Liberator site reasonably nearby, but visibility was poor, and other excuses.
The poppy wreath is from the inmates of Swansea Prison. Anyone know why?
Location: SN 82792 23892
The bent crankshafts from two Merlin engines in the foreground and just behind Mick are some of the largest bits in this 4m by 20m scar left in the hillside by the impact of a Lancaster bomber.
Location: SN 82793 23892
We have received the following information about this site from the aircrew remembrance society:
Lancaster W4929 H.C.U. crashed on the 5th September 1943 with the loss of all the crew:
The extensive remains of this RCAF Wellington on Carreg Goch, Black Mountain, Brecon Beacons, with memorial in the foreground.
A little documentary video can be seen at the link below. Nice that the National Park staff coordinated opposition to it being taken away to someone's garden in Preston, rather than colluding in it, as we are told they did in Snowdonia.
Location: SN 81618 16921
More info
A day out on Monday accompanying Matt ZX up The Rivals (Yr Eifl) to see the scar left by the Meteor crash, and to look into the scrap merchants' claimed Firefly crash on the way up. We didn't fancy the summit to investigate the Halifax crash on the day, we'll save it for another day with a lot less snow and wind. Bounced the Landy off a few walls on the way back down as it was.
It's an old granite kerbstone quarry, so there's a pretty good road all the way up, though there are some dizzying drops (or great views as Mick would call them). The abandoned quarry buildings are pretty interesting, too.
A nice little walk for a day when the radio advised us not to venture out to the shops, let alone onto a Welsh mountain.
This photo is taken from Yr Eifl, and shows Moel Pen Llechog, Gyrn Ddu and Gyrn Goch, I think. Happy to be corrected if wrong.
The circular scar where this Meteor from RAF 5 CAACU met a wall of granite on Yr Eifl in poor visibility on 11th October 1957, unsurprisingly killing the pilot.
The pile of boulders below the scar allegedly covers the small wreckage not looted by the usual suspects, but we found not a scrap of metal at the site.
Location: SH 36068 45892
More info
A bit of fairly convincing-looking aluminium skinning from the area where the Snowdonia list says a Fairey Firefly crashed. We can find no further details on this crash.
Three complicating factors:
1. This is directly below the well-documented Meteor crash site.
2. The area has become a scrap repository. What would be very convincing on open moorland is less so here.
3. The Snowdonia list's greatest weakness is in accurate 'plane identification.
Helpful comments are invited.
Location: SH 36265 46077
Finally found the undercarriage from this Anson navigation trainer on Foel Lwyd at the third try.
This was our backup walk after our attempt on Moel Hebog's Anson EG472 had to be abandoned, as we had chosen a route which was unsuited to the weather.
Ended up doing it in the dark, but with good coords from Rob the Tog, an easy find in the end. It's always a lot easier when you are looking in the right place. The High Ground Wrecks coordinates are over 200m out at this site, and on this terrain, that's a long way.
Location: SH 72366 72056
The engine from this Cessna was still where we found it previously when we went up Daffydd on Monday on a training walk with Kev and Moustache Steve. The Anson and Ventura wrecks are also still in place, with nothing missing as far as we can see.
We had all sorts of fun with the Landy. First the starter motor burned out on the way there, requiring us to push-start 2 tons of Disco after going up and down the mountain. Didn't help that Kev came over all Bear Grylls and made us run all the way back down. Me knees are killing me.
The windscreen wipers failed in a storm on the way back, but they were brought back to life manually using bootlaces tied to the wipers.
All good fun.
Went up to a place called World's End above Minera (near Wrexham)on Monday in a fair bit of snow looking for some of the wrecks up there. Four are given in High Ground Wrecks: Beaufighter NE203, Spitfire TE210, Fulmar N4074, and Master N7442.
As with last week in Yorkshire, we found nothing anywhere near the HGW coordinates for the ones we got to.
A great day out though, and we had the added excitement of very nearly losing the Landy over a steep bank. Excitement is not quite the right word though, we were a few inches from a 30m drop sideways.
The road is basically impassable in any amount of snow, as even locals were finding out the hard way. Quite a few people went past points of no return, and we had to take a couple of carfuls back down to safety as dark closed in. I should imagine this has been world's end for a few drivers over the years, as well as all those pilots.
