Remembering air crash tragedy which claimed six Wigan people's lives 50 years on

The following day the wreckage of the de Havilland Comet 4 aircraft was found in a mountainous area of northern Spain. All 105 passengers and its seven crew had perished.

Among them were three holidaymaking Wigan couples: John Finney and his girlfriend Ann Todd, Henry and Ethel Baker and Brian and Rita Lowe.

Angela Andrews, a niece of the Lowes, today remembered that terrible day and its traumatic aftermath.

Most of the victims were from the Greater Manchester area and it was thought they were all killed instantly when the plane came down in the Montseny mountains on July 3 1970.

The Comet jet had left Manchester Airport two hours earlier to make the short flight to Barcelona with passengers on a Clarkson tour.

Air-traffic controllers at Prat de Llobregt airport in Spain were last in contact with the plane at 6pm.

It had been due to land at that hour but was in fact 12 miles north west of Barcelona flying 6,000ft over Sabadell and a sequence of unfortunate events would lead to tragedy.

Air traffic control delays over Paris had meant the flight, with 48-year-old pilot Captain Alexander Neal in the cockpit, took a different route from its usual one.

It began its descent into Barcelona and the plane was directed towards a beacon at Sabadell and mistakenly reported passing it.

By a dreadful coincidence, another plane overflew the beacon at the same time, leading air traffic controllers to believe it had been passed by the Dan Air flight.

The controller cleared the Comet to descend to 2,800ft but at about 6.05pm local time the aircraft struck beech trees on the north-east slopes of the Les Angudes peak in the Montseny mountains, about 12 miles north west of Barcelona.

Because the flight was 32 miles north of where it was supposed to have been, there was confusion about the location of the wreckage and it wasn’t until the next day the crash site was found.

The victims were buried in a mass grave in the nearby village of Arbucias on July 6, 1970.

Spanish authorities insisted the remains be buried within 48 hours for “hygiene reasons”, meaning that many families could not attend.

However some relatives of the dead did manage to fly over from Wigan in time to attend the service in the small mountainside village of Arbucia, 20 miles from the holiday resort of Calella.

A memorial service was later held in Burnley - from where a large concentration of the victims had come from - to all the deceased.

Mrs Andrews, 54, who married husband Neill in her late aunt’s wedding dress 13 years after the tragedy and now lives in Wrightington said that it was important to remember those lost lives from what is often a forgotten episode of aviation history.

She said: “I was only four years old when it happened and remember police coming to the door and my mum Barbara screaming.

“Rita was her 21-year-old sister, she was from Standish and worked at Coops with a job sewing. She had not been married to Brian for very long at all. He was 22 and a milkman from Pemberton.

“They had only been married a year, it was their first holiday abroad and they had been so looking forward to going to the Costa Brava. I think they went with another of the couples who died - John and Ann.

“It was a terrible time. My grandparents sent Walsh’s the funeral directors to Manchester Airport to collect the bodies only for them to discover that they had already been buried in Spain, so that was upsetting in itself.

“My mum never really got over it. Not having a grave nearby to go to hasn’t helped.

“It seems to be one of those overlooked disasters and for years I didn’t know much about what had happened and was afraid to ask relatives because it caused such upset. But over the years I have pieced things together.

“Thirteen years after the crash I got married in Rita’s wedding dress, which my nana had put away in her wardrobe. We all visited the grave many years ago and would like to return one last time now I am older.”

The Spanish Air Ministry report published in November 1970 said it was impossible to pinpoint blame, but the aircraft was off-course owing to navigation errors made by the crew.

It was the world’s deadliest aviation accident in 1970, and remains the highest death toll of any accident or incident involving the De Havilland Comet anywhere in the world.

Angela said: “I think that on this the 50th anniversary of such a terrible disaster, we should remember all those who lost their lives.”

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