Piper Cherokee G-AWBD on Scafell Pike.
On 28th March 1978 this aircraft took off from Woodvale airfield with a qualfied flying instructor, a trainee pilot and a passenger to
fly a dual control cross-country training flight to Carlisle. The aircraft took off from Woodvale around lunchtime but as the aircraft
headed north west the weather conditions were deteriorating. The instructor asked his pupil to fly up the west coast to avoid the
mountains of the Lake District, he then contacted Carlisle ATC who told him the weather conditions there were still reasonable. Ahead of the
aircraft by this stage lay storm clouds and the instructor then abandoned the flight to Carlisle and was intending on returning to Woodvale,
he informed ATC of his intentions. The last communication with ATC was made at 13.45hrs and the aircraft reported missing just under an hour
later when it failed to land.
Soon after turning the aircraft around the aircraft entered cloud and probably almost immediately the aircraft began to be blown off
course by strong winds and flew into the Lake District. Just prior to crashing the pilot noticed the high ground the aircraft was flying
towards and pulled the nose of the aircraft up, it clipped one of the crags of Lingmell before crashing into rocky ground at the head of
Piers Gill, a rocky gorge just below Scafell Pike. The aircraft was badly damaged although the cockpit area stayed in one piece. The
ground was covered in snow and this probably cushioned the impact slightly. The instructor sustained the more serious injuries but the
passenger remarkably escaped injury. Because of the weather and the injuries the pilot had sustained the three men opted to stay with
the aircraft and await rescue. The pilot later recounted in a Cumbria Magazine article in January 2012 that his injuries prevented him
moving from the aircraft and that he was also stuck blocking the only exit. Because the aircraft was white and it crashed into snow
it was hard to spot. The three men stayed with the aircraft over night on 28th/29th March and it was only on the evening of 29th March 1978
that the aircraft was spotted by a group of fell walkers. The party from Watford Grammar School raised the alarm in Wasdale
and rescue teams were alerted. All three were later airlifted from the site by an RAF helicopter. The photograph shown above was found on the
internet some time before I created this webpage in June 2012 but I sadly did not record the webpage to credit the site or photographer.
Pilot / Flying Instructor - Mr Robert Bentley, aged 35, of Southport.
Trainee Pilot - Mr Ken Charles, aged 44, of Aughton, Ormskirk.
Passenger / Trainee Pilot - Mr Adam Thornton, aged 17, of Formby. Minor injuries.
Mr Andy Hunter was in the area on 5th July 1978 and spotted the cockpit of the aircraft just before it was removed from the site and took
these photographs. I thank him for kindly supplying these photographs for inclusion on this webpage. Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team applied for
permission to removed the wreckage from the mountain and in Summer 1978 this was complete. They later sold it for scrap. Mr Hunter's photographs
were taken as the aircraft had been partly removed from the site and the interior of the aircraft appears already stripped.
I passed the general area of the crash site in June 2012 but did not locate any remains of the aircraft during the brief time I had in the area.
Mr Bentley spent many months recovering from his injuries, he sustaied a crushed spine and fractures to his arm. He also developed frost
bite in his feet before rescue came and eventually parts of them had to be amputated in hospital.
