Scottish crash C150? Circa 1980
 

Hi,

I'm trying to find the accident report for a crash that occurred around 1980. I think it was south of Perth/Kinross area? It involved a C150, I think, and it crashed just below the top of a hill. The pilot was an instructor at one of the Edinburgh Flying Clubs called Hugh Allen.

Cheers,

FM.

This

ASN Aircraft accident 27-JAN-1981 Cessna F150F (Reims) G-ATOG

Or this

ASN Aircraft accident 17-NOV-1981 Cessna FRA.150M Aerobat (Reims) G-BFHL

Might be enough to get you started

I think that the OP may be referring to a 150/152 which crashed close to the top of Ben Cleuch in the Ochils. Unfortunately I cannot be sure of the date but it was in low cloud and I think, was headed to Perth or Dundee.

I'll bet it was G-SATC Prestwick based owned by a group of ATCOs. That would have been 1980.
Jez

G-SATC crashed near Girvan. Wrong side of the country.

There was a crash with an Edinburgh aircraft in the late 70s which occurred during scud running to Glenrothes to pick up fuel which was cheaper there, Will try and find details. I thought it was a Cessna 172.

It was indeed a C172. It hit a hill just to the east of the M90 near Cowdenbeath.

Sorry, no further info.

Edited to add: I've done an AAIB search over a 10 year window and can't find it either. It's not the only one missing so it may be my finger trouble.

My flying instructor told me about it in detail as he was friendly with Hugh. He visited the crash site and said that in most circumstances it should have been a survivable accident.

D.O.

G-PPHJ Cessna 172P crashed 23 October 1981 near Cowdenbeath.

I trained with Edinburgh Air Centre in the 70's and Hugh Allen was one of my instructors, wonderfull chap. He was lost in an accident in the 80's, I had long gone by then and don't know the details. I believe it was reported in the Edinburgh press at the time.

I remember the incident mainly because I believe there was an Air traffic controller on board the flight at the time...is this the incident you are talking about? I believe one of the controllers may have lost a leg in the incident....it was CFIT I believe during low cloud and heavy snow showers!!

Wrong incident Fisbang ;) The Edinburgh Cessna involved 2 fatalities, one of whom was Hugh Allen. I was a Staff Cadet at 12 Air Experience Flight at Turnhouse at the time and remember the Boss there talking about it the day after it happened and relating that they had scrubbed flying on the day of the crash as the weather was bad with extensive low cloud, drizzle, and mist.

The one you are thinking of was (I think) a Grumman Traveller from Dundee back to Prestwick. Might have been G-BERL. There were 2 or 3 NATS staff on board plus one other, one of the ATC staff suffered burns.

10W.....once again I bow to your superior knowledge and youth.:cool:

I was trying to trace an accident that sounds like that of G-BERL. A friend of a friend was involved and survived. The Dundee connection sounds right too because she was from Dundee. If anyone has more details could they PM me. Ta

Oldpilot55, can't confirm the aircraft registration of the AA5 crash, but there is a press cutting here

Press cutting for the crash originally being discussed can be found on Page 3 here

10W....you must have too much time on your hands to do all of this research..Oh how I wish I had a job like yours :rolleyes:

Don't need much time if you have superior knowledge and youth on your side :8:}

10W, thanks. I'll need to email her to find out if that was the accident but the injuries sound like she described.

It would appear to be G-PPHJ that was the aircraft that involved Hugh Allen. What's interesting is that there is no record of it within the AAIB database, despite there being many older records...

FM

Silvaire1

Can't find anything about it other than it appearing in a Flight International accident list which stated it flew in to high ground covered by low cloud.

Fart Master

Nothing suspicious in that, their online records for Bulletins only seem to be complete back until 1987. Earlier reports are selected ones which are probably in the public interest.

Crash
 

Hi my dad was the other pilot with Hugh.

I remember the incident, I seem to recall that they were IMC for Glenrothes.

Hugh was my instructor at the time at Edinburgh, a lovely guy, fond memories of "circuits and bumps" with the patience of a saint!

T18

The PIK aircraft was flown by RH and the ATC pax lost a foot

GA, bad weather, good pilots, mountains and CFIT.

Still happening, bring it up on here people jump down your throat.

Go figure.

This is my first post on here.




Hugh Allen was a wonderful character. I flew with him a few times from Turnhouse when I was cutting my teeth as a budding aviation writer and photographer, still in my teens. I had no credentials but Hugh gave me the benefit of the doubt and rather took me under his wing. This was in the early 1970s.






He married a lady a good bit younger than himself. An attractive and charming lady.




I remember, once, at Turnhouse Flying Club, listening-in to ATC when Hugh was flying and the controller corrected some information Hugh had just conveyed. Hugh's reply was, "Sorry. Too much sex this morning."




That was Hugh.




Nigel

Yes, I remember it well.

We had a bad spell of accidents at EFC in the late 70s. Hugh and John's fatal was one of five in quite rapid succession.

They hit Bishop's Hill in IMC. Neither occupant was wearing the optional shoulder harness and the blow to the forehead upon contacting the instrument panel was instantly fatal. No fire.

Not long previously we'd had a fatal on Bentarty Hill when a member, who'd bought himself an Aztec, had gone down to Stansted to sit his IR initial. He failed and flew the aircraft back on his IMC rating but did not feel legal to shoot an ILS to minimums at EDI. He, like most local pilots, knew of a commonly forming sucker hole on the lee of Benarty Hill, so he tried to let down through it to land at Glenrothes. Crashed and burned.

Another silly CFIT was a member who rented an Archer from TFC and flew some business chums South via SAB VOR in a snowstorm. Clipped the top of Hedgehope Hill in the Cheviots. Did not survive his injuries long enough for MRT to find him.

Yet another silly CFIT was when two members tried an illegal IMC letdown near Shoreham and clipped a chimney. Fatal. One was the air cadet gliding unit CFI at Kirknewton, the other was a traffic cop. Both were mature enough to know better.

Not long previously John Turnbull had crashed one of his Aztecs (or mebbe it was Brian Bailey's one) on climbout from Glenrothes. He was carrying all four of his engineers on a post-Check airtest. Just after rotate the fwd hold door popped open and vibrated badly. John shut down the port engine thinking the prop had gone nuts. It was under engine and he didn't make the blue line. He was the only survivor. He died three or four years later when a tree he was cutting down fell on him.

We'd had another silly and rather odd one when a member flew an Aerobat with a girlfriend to spend the night at Glenforsa. Long after dark, following a mellow dinner, he took it into his head to fly a few circuits. She didn't go with him as he needed her to shine a torch so her could find the runway! His body was later found propped against a tree, with no sign of the aircraft. Plenty of theories flying around for years about that one!!

The aircraft you refer to in your finally sorry tale there, the Aerobat, was G-AVTN, if I'm not mistaken. My records show that I flew in that aircraft on 14 May 1972, on my first attempt at air-to-air photography. Edinburgh Flying Club (Ian Cooper) had just acquired a Monsun, if my memory serves, and the idea was that I take photos of it over the Forth Bridges, from the Cessna. Peter Nisbet was flying me. I believe he was an instructor at EFC. And I presume Ian will have been flying the Monsun. I came across the pix I took a few years ago. They are buried somewhere again now. Who knows when they'll next surface from my ten-miles-deep pile of aerospace bits and pieces.


When 'VTN was lost in that mysterious accident, a businessman named Peter Gibbs was flying it. I don't suppose we'll ever know what really happened.


One accident at Turnhouse that really stuck in my mind was the one involving Imperial Tobacco's HS125 - in 1970 or thereabouts. The aircraft crashed within the airport boundary. Ian Cooper told me he'd seen it at first hand from close quarters, as EFC was situated right at the end of the runway.


Ian had some great tales of King Hussain of Jordan when he was flying at Turnhouse back in the day. I understood that he had learned to fly there? Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I'd gathered.


I've lots of great Turnhouse memories. From air-experience flights in the ATC (Chipmunks - 12AEF) to flying as PAX with the Blue Eagles there when they had the Sioux, to seeing Concorde 002 demonstrating at the air-display, when it was still thought-of as something straight out of a Gerry Anderson movie.

I'm now pretty sure that the aircraft referred to in the root post was G-BFGC.

The club, Hamish Morris actually, bought three new Cessnas in the winter of 77/78. The 172 'GE was dinked in a silly prop-strike, but recovered. 'FY was damn nearly totalled when Hamish ran it out of fuel on a run to Glenrothes to buy fuel cheaper than Andy Bruce was willing to sell for. Tried to use a ploughed field for the forced landing, silly man, and put it on its back.

'GC was deleted from the CAA register in 1980 so that must have been the one that Hugh/John perished in. I've just had a look at the AAIB site, but can't find any report there.

Yup, Peter Gibb was the Glenforsa fella. He was known to have had business rivals and it was said that there were one or two jealous husbands who may have had ill intentions towards him so the mysterious circumstances of his crash fed all kinds of ideas. The post-mortem was quasi-inconclusive but presumed that hypothermia was the cause of death. No salt was found in his clothing and no sign of the aircraft on land. Later a wheel was found washed up on the shore a few miles away which was identified as being from the aircraft but that simply fed the wild stories as it seemed just a bit too convenient. Eventually some scoobydoo sport divers found the wreckage and it became clear that he simply flew it into the glassy water on right base in the dark.

Entirely concur that Hugh was wonderfully good company, with or without a dram in his hand. For part of the '70s I was flying in Nigeria and so we often jabbered in West African Pidgin to the bemusement of anyone who was unaware of Hugh's background in the West African logging trade. Yes, I also remember his prim and immaculately dressed new wife, Edie. He often horrified her by calling her Erotica in public.

The only chum from those days, and of his ilk, that I'm still pally with is Ian Hamilton. Another great character about whom I could tell many a tale, but shalln't lest the moderators sh1t bricks.

Yes, King Hussein was a frequent visitor to the clubhouse. My predecessor as Flying Convenor on the Committee was Jock Dalgleish who was an old flying buddy of HM King Hussein. Jock had saved the life of HM by flying what amounted to a one-sided dog-fight against a pair of Syrian MiGs in a Dove (or was it a Heron?). The King visited Edinburgh once or twice a year and always dropped by the clubhouse for a blether and to swap flying stories with all and sundry at the bar in a complete informal way. If he'd forgotten your name he had a disarming habit of addressing one as "Sir". The only time in my life I've ever been asked by a King "What would you like to drink, Sir?". An excellent fellow, and later with a charming new Queen who was naturally gracious and regal despite being an American. I seem to recall that she had an aviation background too, through a family connection with PanAm or somesuch.

He didn't learn to fly with us, but Jock had taught him and had illegally authed his first solo, by simply leaving the cockpit of the Dove with HM at the controls and telling him to get on with it and that he'd be in the bog until the aircraft had taxyed in.

Happy days. Sadly the Club had to dissolve itself last year in the face of extreme operational difficulties at what has become a shopping mall with a runway alongside.