Ref Number: 0055
6th May 1962 Channel Airways Dakota G-AGZB crashed into the cloud covered hill of St Boniface Down.
Ref Number: 0055
The Dakota DC3 (G-AGZB) was travelling from Guernsey to Jersey, Portsmouth, and Southend as part of a trip that was supposed to be operated by Channel Air Services. It seems that the aircraft went down as a result of a multitude of unfavourable factors that plagued the aircraft on that particular day.
The two members of the flight crew of the ‘Zulu Bravo’ were really the standby crew and had never flown together previous to this trip, despite the fact that both of them had a significant amount of experience individually. They had previously been forced to make an unscheduled diversion straight to the Channel Islands during the first legs of the voyage beginning in Southend due to the dense fog in Portsmouth; thus, Guernsey was their next destination.
They had previously tried instrument landings at Portsmouth, but those landings ended up having to be aborted. As a result, they made the choice to fly low in the weather, which was their only other option for moving ahead, and they attempted a visual approach. All of this occurred in the days before ground approach radar systems of the kind that are used today.
After making it to Guernsey without any problems, Zulu Bravo immediately started loading passengers and freight for their subsequent flight to Jersey, where they landed at 12:25 p.m. without encountering any problems. Another aircraft belonging to Channel Islands Air, which was piloted by the airline’s head pilot, was parked on the tarmac nearby. In addition, he was waiting to board a flight to Portsmouth, but his departure was delayed because of the stormy weather. It was Zulu Bravo’s responsibility to transport some of the already overbooked passengers from the first trip to Portsmouth after they were offloaded from the aircraft.
It has been said that as passengers were being moved between aircraft for the return flights to Portsmouth, a pretty heated conversation questioning the safety of getting back into Portsmouth in such circumstances developed between the chief pilot and the other officers. The argument centred on whether or not it was possible to travel back into Portsmouth under the current conditions. It would seem that the airline and the chief pilot were making efforts to keep everything on schedule, which resulted in a large amount of pressure being placed on the captain of Zulu Bravo to stay to the timetable. However, because of his previous unsuccessful bid for Portsmouth, he was hesitant to try again for that city.
Unplanned detours almost always result in increased levels of friction and tension. In addition to this, the corporation supposedly required the crew to try at least one method before asking for a diversion, which meant that it was very difficult for crews to call for a diversion until they had tried it themselves at least once.
The choice to make an attempt for Portsmouth was made without any additional delay in the process. On the other hand, the prior disagreements had simply served to lengthen the total amount of delay. After taking off at 13:54 and climbing to an altitude of 3,000 feet, Zulu Bravo flew through Alderney at 14:07 as the weather was mostly clear. They calculated their location using dead reckoning and reported it at 14:14 hours. When they reached the middle of the cloud, they descended to the level of the sea in order to determine whether or not they could pass below it. They were unlucky enough to encounter rain and mist, as well as really foggy places. The plan was to make an attempt to fly low beneath the ceiling, locate the solent corridor, and fly along it. After that, they were going to make a turn towards Portsmouth for the approach while utilising visual markers as a help. The skipper had apprehensions about the whole of this procedure. His worries were compounded by the fact that the landing attempt at Portsmouth had been cancelled earlier; yet, he was obligated to make an attempt to deliver the customers, who had already been much delayed owing to the earlier inclement weather.
Flight Plan
After obtaining authorization from London Air Traffic Control to fly at 1000 feet, Zulu Bravo found itself on the deck precisely fourteen minutes and sixteen seconds later. They intended to go at a slow and steady pace until they reached the southernmost point of the Isle of Wight, at which point they would make landing, continue down the coast to the Solent, and then return home. Because the visibility must have decreased and the tail winds must have been higher than expected, the location of the aircraft was misread by a rather large factor as a result of what occurred next. This was a combination of unlucky circumstances and an incorrect assumption. It is thought that the captain had a perception that he was five to six miles away from the island but, in reality, he was in a thick cloud at a height of one thousand feet and was far closer to the island than he should have been.
It would seem that flying at this level rendered the aircraft’s navigational aids to be very unreliable. This is because the “TI” transmitter at this point in the flight was being obscured by the island’s land mass, which most likely resulted in the crew receiving inaccurate information. At this point, the pilot and crew were essentially just flying by the seat of their trousers while peering out the window in the hopes of seeing land. The second hypothesis is that Bravo Zulu, by some stroke of luck, was now really flying up a valley just above Ventnor. It is possible that the crew mistook this valley for landing to the west, and as a result, they turned to what they believed was Sandown Bay in order to slowly make their way up the coast to Portsmouth. Unfortunately, the fog was quite dense, and as a result, they were really heading straight into St. Boniface Down at this point. It was said that if they had been 150 feet higher, they would have been able to avoid missing it.
It seemed like all of a sudden the engines were revving up to their full potential, but it was already too late. The pilot attempted to bank but was unsuccessful, and when he saw what was going to happen, he turned off the engines in an effort to bring the plane to a level flight before it crashed. The crash of Zulu Bravo occurred near the summit of Saint Boniface. The aircraft barely avoided striking an ancient radar tower, careened through the gorse, struck a radar facility, creating a 100-yard-long crater, and finally came to a stop on the access road to the down. As a result of the captain’s last action of turning off the engines, gasoline did not continue to be pumped into the aircraft, and the majority of the plane was able to avoid cartwheeling or breaking up to a significant degree; nonetheless, a fire did break out.
The situation in the area was really serious. The reaction to the disaster might have been significantly slower if it hadn’t been for a Ted Price who had been working near by at the time of the incident. A group of Civil Defence volunteers who were less than 250 yards away were ignorant of the catastrophe. Ted, rushed over and sounded the alram then made his way back to the scene of the accident, dove under the debris, and couragously freed a number of people who were then transported to a hospital in Ryde. He was later credited with saving their lives.
The investigation that followed uncovered a wide variety of hypotheses on the causes of the collision. Error on the side of the pilot, adverse weather circumstances, a technological malfunction, and the pressure to perform must have all contributed. On that terrible day, fifty years ago, flight Zulu Bravo was headed to Portsmouth, and it is very evident that lady luck was not among the passengers.
The video shows the working of a standard DC 3 of the time and its very manual flight characteristics, giving some insight into the cockpit conditions and overview.
Today a memorial plague has been erected at the spot on St Boniface Down commerating the dreadful accident of the 6th May 1962.
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