Originally Posted by
Capvermell
I think this lower level of magnification at
Streetmap.co.uk - Map of 52.840320, -3.993511 shows rather better where the site actually is in relation to the coast and the height of the actual mountain/ridge crashed in to.
It would also be interesting to know what altitude they were travelling at during most of the rest of the journey from Luton and what effort they made to fly higher when flying over terrain chock full with mountains as high as 1085m.
If determined to make the trip in such adverse weather conditions its also hard to see why they wouldn't have flown over lower terrain and north of but close to the North Wales coast, although even then there is a long and dangerous ridge of mountains up to 1064m high just south of Llanfairfechan. But as the Twin Squirrell is capable of flying at up to 3,400m was there any good reason for them to be flying this low in this area. Of course I expect weather and lack of visibility at higher altitudes no doubt came in to the equation. Or was lack of fuel to take a more circuitous route with this amount of adult passengers and luggage also potentially a factor?
On the first day of the search operation, cloud cover was down to 300m or so. Visibility was said to be around 10 feet.