RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: clickaway on Monday 03 September 07 23:15 BST (UK)
-
I have been to Brookwood cemetery today and spotted two memorials relating to air accidents. One relating to an Iberia flight from Malaga to London that crashed near Fernhurst, Sussex. The other was an Air Ferry DC-4 that crashed in the Pyrenees the same year.
However, next to these two memorials is one entitled "In Memory of those who died as a result of an accident in Spain on 19th August 1959".
28 people are listed and at least two were medical students.
Does anyone have any idea on this? I do not have a plane crash for this day, so perhaps a coach crash or hotel blaze perhaps?
I don't think there is necessarily a link with the local area.
Thanks
Ray
-
It could possibly be the flight that NANCY SPAIN (author and journalist )was killed on. The crash may have been some time before. I cannot remember how long it took to recover any bodies if they were recoverale and to identify the people. I know that my Doctors wife was travelling with NANCY SPAIN. (you could try googling her name it may shed some light on the subject.
-
I have just googled NANCY SPAIN and found that the plane she was in crashed in 1964, so that rules out the memorial you found for 1959
-
Headline from The Times, 20 August 1959:
29 STUDENTS DIE IN AIR DISASTER
CRASH ON MISTY HILL-TOP
HOMEWARD BOUND FROM SPAIN
The article then goes on the describe the crash (on 19 August) of the 34-seater Transair Dakota, which had been chartered by the National Union of Students, into the Montseny mountains north of Barcelona. Most of the students had been on holiday in Majorca.
All on board - a total of 32 - were killed, most of them among the group of British students. The casualties are named in the article.
Hope that helps
Anna
-
Thanks Anna,
Further Googling has revealed that it crashed into a mountain shortly after take-off from Barcelona and was bound for Gatwick. The registration was G-AMZD.
Cheers,
Ray