Westness
WESTNESS: Accident site 1930s
We have Mr Alan R Braby to thank for sending these very rare pictures of the accident and retrieval of the DH84 Dragon G-ADCT. The circumstances surrounding this crash appear to be unclear, except that a severe downdraught was involved. One account says the Dragon was doing a low fly-past, and of course, perhaps it was? This said, I find it unlikely that the pilot, unless flying at a very low speed, would have been caught out? Those pilots were very experienced at dealing with and predicting localised hazards and the accident rate was commendably low.
Westness House was occupied by the whiskey magnate Sir Walter Grant who owned Highland Park Distillery. It is purely my guess of course, but by the 1930s, I would suspect that possibly a landing strip had been laid out for the convenience of visiting guests, both for private and business visits? Probably my imagination but the first three pictures do seem to suggest the end of an airstrip? If this looks very narrow, I can recall landing at at least two places of similar width.
The local area view is from my Google Earth © derived database.
NOTES: We do not know the exact location of this accident site or the date. WESTNESS is on the B9064 in the south-west side of the island. As always for this 'Guide', if anybody can kindly offer advice and information, this will be much appreciated.
A brief search reveals that G-ADCT was registered to Scottish Airways based at INVERNESS, (LONGMAN) from 16.06.38 until 07.05.40. But, it seems, crashed here on the 14th December 1939. In those days it was quite common for the 'paper-trail' to take months to catch up.
As G-ADCT was first registered on the 28th August 1935, it would suspect that this accident occurred before Scottish Airways acquired it?
We'd love to hear from you, so please scroll down to leave a comment!
Leave a comment ...
Copyright (c) UK Airfield Guide
