On 24th January 1944 this aircraft took off from Kinloss airfield in Scotland, on board was an ATA pilot and an ATA flight engineer who were to fly the aircraft down to Kemble in Wiltshire just prior to it being flown to the Middle Eastern / North African theatre of operations. Whilst flying in poor visibility and with high winds effecting much of the country the two airmen became lost over northern England. Because the ATA aircraft carried no navigators it was probably common practice when lost to locate the coastline to work out their position, in this case the crew had been attempting to divert to land at Kirkbride airfield near Carlisle so they were probably attempting to fly west and locate the west coast and then fly north-east to Carlisle. The pilot would have known Kirkbride airfield as he had made landings there before with earlier ATA flights. The Halifax was not flying high enough as it crossed the Lake District and at around 12.30hrs the aircraft crashed into Scot Crag, on Crag Hill / Eel Crag mountain to the west of Keswick killing the two on board instantly. The bodies of the two crew were recovered at the time but due to the nature of the crash location and the weather the recovery of the wreckage took several months to carry out and during this operation a member of the RAF fell and required hospital treatment. LAC J R Hopps (624894) was admitted to the Mary Hewitson Cottage Hospital in Keswick with serious injuries.
The UK National Archives hold much more information in files AVIA 15/3619 and 3620.
Halifax JP182 was built to contract B.124357/40 by The London Passenger Transport Board at Leavesden as a B.II Series.1a and was awaiting collection on 20th December 1943. On 30th December 1943 it was taken on charge by 45 M.U. at Kinless. On 23rd January 1944 it's A.M. Form 78 states it was taken on charge by No.1 O.A.P.U. (Overseas Aircraft Preparation Unit) at Kemble for preparation for service overseas. It seems likely that it was being flown south away from 45 M.U. at Kinless when the accident happened the next day. As a result of the accident in the Lake District the next day Cat.E2/FA damage was recorded on the paperwork and at the time of the incident it was in the hands of 14 Ferry Pilot Pool based at Ringway.
Pilot - F/Cpt Bernard Short ATA, aged 33. Of Hull, Yorkshire. Buried Ringway Churchyard, Cheshire (Row 3, grave 4).
Flight Engineer - Snr F/Eng Arthur Bird ATA, aged 29, of Edenbridge, Kent. Buried Edenbridge Cemetery, Kent (Grave 292A).
Bernard Short's grave at Ringway. Bernard was born on 1st July 1910 in Hull. He learned to fly at the Hull Aero Club in 1937, gaining a Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate (Cert. No.15381) on 22nd September 1937, at that time he was working as a newsagent. He later took a job working for North Eastern Airways Ltd. When the War begun he briefly served in the RAF but left to join the ATA and served in the ATA until his death in the Lake District. While ferrying aircraft he was involved in at least four mishaps prior to this incident near Braithwaite; on 9th September 1940 he was flying Lysander T1515 that crashed on landing at Whitchurch. On 30th August 1941 he was the pilot of Leopard Moth AV986 which was force-landed on Rushup Edge in the Peak District and was damaged when he attempted to take off. On 20th February 1943 he was the pilot of Walrus W3070 which was damaged in a flying accident in high winds and on 2nd April 1943 he was the pilot of Walrus X9482 which crashed on landing at Kirkbride, Carlisle in a strong cross-wind. He left a young son. The photograph of his gravestone was found on the internet when I originally created this webpage and credit is to "Kev35".
Arthur Bird also left a young son. Research that was once housed in the former Millom air museum by Gilbert Rothery recorded that Arthur Bird's wife lived in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire. The photograph of his gravestone was found on the internet when I originally created this webpage and credit is to "PaulF".
I first located wreckage from this crash site below Scot Crag in October 2006, finding a number of pieces of the aircraft scattered in scree for some distance down the mountain. I returned to this site in April 2014 with Ade Harris in poor weather to try to locate the point of impact which was much higher up on the mountain but because of the poor weather we opted to return another day having gone about as high as we dared given the conditions. We then returned later that year and found the general area it had crashed.
There are now many small collections of wreckage at the base of many scree runs on the fellside and two larger collections of wreckage much lower down the fellside. These two photographs show the two largest collections.
A rusty flash eliminator from a Browning machine gun and a fragment of a propeller blade's covering.
I tend to photograph part numbers on aircraft fragments I locate so that I have a record of these items should I ever locate similar numbers at other crash sites I could use them to identify other aircraft. The part numbers still visible on parts of Halifax JP182 are in fantastic condition. I have included a number of these number sequences here should they assist anyone else in the future.
A good range of inspection stamps ("APRRC", "LTAF", "EMBW") of the various companies that were part of the London Aircraft Production Group are shown here. I do not know the meanings of some of these stamps when this webpage was last updated . Halifax JP182 was a MkII variant and was built by the London Aircraft Production Group and whilst many of the basic numbers are common with all Halifax number sequences using "57" number prefix some bore the "59" prefix, one such "59" prefix is shown above.
Looking down and up the scree slopes where much of the wreckage from this aircraft still remains.
