Turnhouse RAF crash landing story

[scardeycat]

Hello everyone!

I'm hoping one of you may be able to help me with a story my dad told me but I cannot find any evidence of.

He told me that he was as an RAF cadet at school at Fettes in Edinburgh and that he was on a compulsory navigation course in an RAF Dakota sometime after WW2, perhaps late forties early fifties (he couldn't remember). On the retun flight into Turnhouse, he told me, it crash landed at twice the normal speed causing the undercarriage to disintegate on impact and that it eventually came to a standstill with no-one hurt.

This, coupled with another such flight he was on which also had a problem coming into land at Turnhouse (although no-one on board knew anything was wrong until after they had disembarekd), he claimed was the reason he never flew again.

I have to admit that I believe he exagerated this story in order never to take my mum on holiday! But I am curious...does anyone know of such an incident and what really happened?

Thanks for reading this.

[KeMac]

Do you have a more precise date at all? Also do you have any more detail on the second incident? was this also a Dakota? Rough date?
Whilst researching the history of Turnhouse I did hear of an over run of an RAF aircraft on runway 08/26 which involved serious damage but I am not not sure what type it was. Neither was I able to dig out any more info about it.

[henry crun]

scardeycat: A book titled Broken Wings lists all major accidents to RAF aircraft from 1945 to 1999.

I had a quick scan through from 1946 to Dec 1952 and found only one that might fit the accident you describe, and this is a long shot.

28.3.46/ Dakota KG660/ location-Toolbar Cottage, Brampton, Cumberland/ Engine cut for training purposes on takeoff from Crosby, lost height and belly landed.

[airborne_artist]

He told me that he was as an RAF cadet at school at Fettes in Edinburgh and that he was on a compulsory navigation course in an RAF Dakota sometime after WW2, perhaps late forties early fifties (he couldn't remember)

What is your Dad's year of birth? He'd have been a CCF cadet from age 14 to 18, so that could narrow it down a bit.

[scardeycat]

Thank you for your thoughts and comments.

I think the plane was an ancom or arcon or soemthing like that(?). Sorry, I know that's not the right name but cannot think what the right name was. It wasnt a Dakota after all.

He was born 1936 and must have been 14 or 15, so about 1949 / 50.

He probably was a ccf cadet.

It was a flight (navigation training) from Turnhouse to Perth and on the retun trip the air brakes failed.

KeMAc, you might have the right incident. What a shame it isnt possible to find out more. The second incident is probaly worth disregarding as it didnt amount to anything much.

I apologise for my spelling (I really need spell check!)

Thanks again. Any other thoughts are most welcome.

[India Four Two]

I think the plane was an ancom or arcon or soemthing like that(?).

Sounds like it was probably an Avro Anson.

[Dick Whittingham]

And would the "air brakes" be the pneumatic wheel brakes?

Dick

[Union Jack]

I have no idea whether there is a link with Scardeycat's father's interesting "AEFs", but a twin engined aircraft made an emergency landing on quite steeply sloping farmland just to the west of the Lauriston Castle estate, quite close to Turnhouse, in the early 1950s. For those with local knowledge, it came down a few hundred yards to the right of the Davidson's Mains to Cramond road, about halfway down the hill towards Cramond.

My source cannot recall definitively whether the aircraft was military or civil, but does seem to remember an Anson being involved, which tends to suggest the former.

Jack

[lauriebe]

Scardeycat, I have had a look through the books that I have that record RAF aircraft write-offs, particularly the period 1-1-48 to 31-12-55. In those I came across only one incident that might possibly be related to your father's experience.

On 10 March 1951, an Anson C11 of 66 Gp Comms Flt, PH755, landed too far down the runway at Turnhouse and overshot into a ditch. However, the account only mentions the pilot as being unhurt. It makes no mention of any passengers that might have been onboard. This could be the incident mentioned by KeMac above.

If the aircraft that your father was on were recovered and repaired then they would not appear in those publications and would be very difficult to trace.