Lost in the hills...

Mickle Fell used to be the highest fell in Yorkshire. Following upon boundary changes in the seventies, it is now in County Durham ! Many aircraft have come to grief in the hills of the Lake District and the Pennines, when navigational aids weren't as good as those of today. These pictures were taken over three expeditions to the site of one such sad event.

In the early hours of 19 October 1944 a Stirling bomber, (LK 488), on a cross country training flight from Wratting Common in Cambridgeshire, crashed, almost at the very top of the fell. Only one of the seven crew, (six New Zealanders and one Briton), survived. He managed somehow to drag himself down to lonely Birkdale Farm. From there he was taken to hospital at Northallerton. Some of the wreckage was spread over the other side of the fell, suggesting that the aircraft had only just failed to clear the top. The wreckage of the aircraft, said to be one of the most complete wrecks in Britain, was removed by helicopter in 1980.