Missing Cessna found off Scotland after 28 years?

[BossEyed]

Fascinating, and somewhat sad.

"Mystery plane found on sea bed

An investigation has been opened after three Royal Navy minesweepers found a mystery aircraft on the sea bed off the west coast near Oban.
The aircraft is believed to be a Cessna and it is thought it may be a plane which disappeared 28 years ago.

The pilot was found dead on land, but his aircraft was never found. "

Story in The Scotsman (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2502797) (Cessna or Aztec? Story is a little confused)

BBC News Report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3467055.stm)

(edited due finger trouble)

[pigboat]

If they've seen a wing strut, 'tain't no Aztec.

[BALIX]

Don't know anything about the missing Aztec but the Cessna crash is quite a story. Firstly, why would anyone go take off in a Cessna 150 from an unlighted grass airfield after dark on Christmas Eve to do, apparently, a couple of circuits. The pilot got a friend to park his car at the end of the Glenforsa runway and turn his headlights on for some form of guidance but it strikes me that he wasn't really of sound mind.

Secondly, what happened to him? He clearly crashed somewhere but couldn't be found. A wheel was washed up a few weeks later but it wasn't for some months before the pilot's body was found by a shepherd half way up a hill.

The last bit of the mystery concerned the fact that the post-mortem revealed no salt water in the corpse, which cast a doubt on the assumption that he had somehow crashed into the sea, managed to escape the aircraft and swim ashore in a confused state, only to die later of exposure.

Mystery aside, Glenforsa is a cracking little airfield for a day out. Don't go after dark, though :sad:

[Panama Jack]

Yo man, it was like, the '70's!

The fashions of the era are evidence that few people were in a sound state of mind back then. :p

[LowNSlow]

Trust the BEEB to show a picture of an aeroplane that is neither a Cessna or an Aztec............