Sabre 23380 on Iron Crag, Ennerdale, Western Lake District.
The Canadian pilot of this Sabre was on a cross country training flight on Friday, 26th June 1959. The flight began at Prestwick, Scotland at 13.00hrs and the pilot headed
in a rough south-easterly direction to avoid the hills near the airfield, his destination in England was to have been Wethersfield, Essex and then later onto his
parent airfield of Grostenquin, France. There was thick mist covering the hills of the Lake District on this day and as the aircraft flew south it entered this but
having cleared some of the larger hills at the north-east side of the area the pilot descended through the cloud to get a fix on his location, presumably assuming he
was clear of the hills. This error would sadly cost him his life. The aircraft struck the ground south of Ennerdale Water close to the summit of Iron Crag at
13.11hrs, after which the aircraft broke up. It would be a further two days until a search party would locate the remains of the aircraft, the majority of which
had been scattered down the grass and scree where it still rests today. The pilot's body was recovered and buried at the large multi-national cemetery at Brookwood,
Surrey. His watch was found at the crash site and this had stopped at 13.11hrs confirming the time of the crash.
Pilot - F/O Robert Gordon Starling RCAF (216497), aged 27. Buried Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey (Canada/B/2).
Robert "Robin" Starling was the son of Robert and Beryl Starling and was born on 30th October 1932 in Asansol, India. He enlisted into the RCAF on
23rd October 1953 in Montreal, Canada. His parents had either ran or where running Powri Hill Colliery in India at the time of his death. The photograph of him
shown above was found on the "www.veterans.gc.ca" website. I thank Mr Neil Smith for kindly visiting Brookwood Cemetery on my behalf and photographing his gravestone.
An MoD licence to excavate / recover items from the site was granted on 19th April 1993. I would welcome contact from anyone involved and would love to see any photographs of items found and recovered. For many years after the crash the near-complete tail section that was at the site before finding its way to Millom Air Museum but since the museum's closure where it now is housed is not known. I first visited this crash site in October 2003 and most recently in 2018. The photograph above shows one of the wings as it was in 2003.
A small memorial plaque on the remains of the other wing.
Part of the cockpit canopy.
Part of the fuselage with the aircraft serial stencilling on it.
The nose undercarriage leg.
The engine core.
