Lockheed Lodestar 42-56014 on Beinn Nuis, Isle of Arran.
In the morning of 30th September 1943 this aircraft took off in poor weather from Prestwick to be flown to Stornaway with a cargo load and two passengers, after taking off from Prestwick the aircraft headed towards the intended destination but by the time it crossed the Isle of Arran coast the aircraft had not gained enough height to clear the hills that lay ahead. The aircraft crashed into the eastern side of Beinn Nuis which was blanketed in cloud and broke up with all on board being killed. Because of the poor weather it was two days until the wreckage was found and the bodies of all on board were later recovered. All of those listed below apart from the last named were serving with the USAAF Air Transport Command. Just a month earlier B24 42-41030 had crashed on Beinn Nuis just a few hundred metres from where the Lodestar crashed and in December 1944 B-17 42-97286 crashed between the two sites with the loss of involved in all incidents. Very little is yet known about any of those killed in this incident but I would direct anyone with an interest in flying accidents on the Islands of Scotland to Dave Earl's research.
Pilot - 1st Lt John R MacKenzie USAAF (O-512268), of Texas? Buried Madingley Cemetery, Cambridge, UK (E/3/71).
Co-Pilot - 2nd Lt Richard H Riddle USAAF (O-675625), of North Carolina. Buried Madingley Cemetery, Cambridge, UK (B/2/23).
Radio Operator - Pte William Silberg USAAF (34530241). Buried Long Island National Cemetery, East Farmingdale, New York, USA.
Engineer - Staff Sgt John G Johnson USAAF (11041999?). Burial location unknown.
Air Engineer - PFC Bernard T Boone USAAF (34380960), of York County, South Carolina, USA. Buried Woodlawn Memorial Park, Greenville, South Carolina, USA.
Passenger - Major Louis C Goldsmith USAAF (O-171793), of Oregon. Buried Madingley Cemetery, Cambridge, UK (B/3/23).
Passenger - Tech Sgt John M Fantaskey US Army (33236808), of Pennsylvania. Buried Madingley Cemetery, Cambridge, UK (D/1/30). Serving with 24th Regional Control Group.
John Fantaskey is listed in the 1930 US census living in Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania with parents John and Julia and siblings Margaret, Bernard, Edward, Rose, Gean and Donald. He is then listed in the 1940 US census with his father John Fantaskey but his mother would appear to have died as his father's wife is given as Edith Fantaskey (33), and with siblings Margaret, Bernard, Rosemarie, Dolores, Donald and Irene. John Jnr was working as a stockman in a factory in 1940 aged 21 years old. He enlisted for military service in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in July 1942.
Graves of the other three members of this crew who are still buried in the UK.
I visited the crash site in July 2014 in poor weather and as a result the photographs shown here are not as great I would have hoped for. The three aircraft that crashed on Beinn Nuis are shown on this photograph; the Lodestar crashed in the cloud on the right, the B17 crashed in the centre on the rockface just in the cloud and the B24 crashed over the horizon on the left but wreckage from it is scattered down the hillside on the left of this photograph.
The aircraft crashed near to the top of the gully shown in these photographs and wreckage from the aircraft is still to be seen down the gully and hillside below. The gully is steeper than it looks in these photographs.
A stainless steel clamp with manufacturers markings.
A very poignant find; a US Army button.
This rusty item may be one of the control levers in the centre throttle unit in the cockpit.
An unidentified piece of electrical equipment with the remains of valves inside the same unit shown below. Parts of one of the engines can be seen in the background of the bottom photograph.
A couple of other unidentified pieces of equipment, the item above was hollow and had wires around the back and the item below looks to be stop-cock for some form of liquid inside the aircraft.
William Silberg was a native of Chile and enlisted for military service in the US forces on 11th December 1942 in Monroe County, Florida.
