Respond to this messageReturn to Index
Original Message
  • Handley Page Hermes Crash Site Visit
      • David Wood
      Posted Aug 13, 2002 6:31 AM

      On 26th May, 1952, A Handley Page Hermes, G-ALDN, operated by BOAC, departed from Tripoli in Libya (which was much more friendly then) bound for Kano, Nigeria. Total souls on board was 18.

      During the flight (at night) the airliner's crew became lost (due to a faulty compass) and the airplane slowly turned right and flew to the west. Eventually, some 1200 miles off course, lost over the Sahara Desert, and almost out of fuel, the crew made a wheels up, forced landing, some 71 miles SSE of Atar (where the RAF had a manned landing strip) in Mauritania (Check the actual flight route v the planned route, all out in your Atlas. It's quite a distance.)

      The left wing broke away during the ground slide but other than that, the airplane remained intact and all survived.

      One crew member died of heat stroke while awaiting rescue (which took some days.)

      The airplane was never salvaged.

      An expediditon is to be mounted this year from the U.K. to visit the site, to see just what can be salvaged for possible use in a partial restoration of the only surving Hermes Fuselage.

      Last report was that the crashed airplane was still in good condition, down to the BOAC paint livery on the fuselage.

      A film crew is accompanying the expedition and hopefully footage will be made into a video report that will be made commercially available.


    Login Status
  • You are not logged in
      • Login
      Password
       

      Optional
      Provides additional benefits such as notifications, signatures, and user authentication.

      Create Account
    Your Name
    Your Email
    (Optional)
    Message Title
    Message Text
    Image Services Photobucket.com
    Options Enable formatted text (Huh?)
    Also send responses to my email address
          


    Find more forums on AviationCreate your own forum at Network54
     Copyright © 1999-2009 Network54. All rights reserved.   Terms of Use   Privacy Statement  

    NOTICE: Forum postings are strictly the opinions of public participants, and are not the opinions of Propliners.com. Any postings that are in bad taste, links to advertisements, or links to other non-related websites will be removed. Propliners.com reserves the right to edit or remove all posts. Propliners.com is not responsible for any offensive postings on this forum. We do our best to screen all postings. If you find any inappropriate postings please send an email to webmaster@propliners.com.

    Copyright © 2002, Propliners.com
    All Rights Reserved