The 1949 air crash of DC-3 above Dovestone’s Reservoir has been in the news in recent days over speculation that a man found dead in the area back in December may have in someways been connected with the flight.
About Manchester now looks back at the tragic story of sixty seven years ago.
On the 19th August 1949 a scheduled flight DC-3 lfrom Nutts Corner, Belfast set off just before midday on what should have been a routine 80 minute flight to Manchester Ringway.
The crew were all experienced, Captain Pinkerton had flown a total of 4201 hours during both his civilian career and earlier RAF service, having received his commission as a Pilot Officer in October 1944 and became a Flying Officer during 1945. He had flown into Ringway some 88 times in the two years before the accident.
Just over an hour later, making its routine approach and turn over Saddleworth, the aircraft slammed into the hillside at Wimberry Stones just above DoveStone’s reservoir and twenty feet from the summit.
Twenty one passengers and all three crew members were killed in the crash. There were eight survivors.
The crash was heard from miles around and some of the first people on the scene were workers from a local paper mill who reported survivors staggering from the wreckage and formed a human chain to ferry the injured down the mountain.
Ambulances from Oldham and thirty men from the RAF mountain rescue service were also involved in the rescue mission that August Day.
The accident was put down to pilot error with the hillside obscured by low cloud.
It wasn’t to be the only air tragedy that summer day.Just an hour later at Baildon in Yorkshire, approximately 40miles away, a light aircraft crashed killing all four of its passengers.
