Egypt4u

Not that this was a plane the size of the Malaysian flight but it was a much smaller and definitely older version of an aviation mystery affecting this area. 72 yrs ago a Canadian pilot and 3 British airmen from the Royal British Air Force took off from Sidney Airbase on Vancouver Island never to be seen again until a logging crew found remains near Port Renfrew in 2013. Unfortunately the remains were not recoverable at that time and it wasn't until now that the bodies were brought in for forensic investigation and identified. The plane was an Avro Anson.

I know, a little bit, the area this plane crashed. It is on the west coast of the Island and when fog comes in there off the Pacific Ocean it comes in like a wall of thick pea soup impenetrable fog. This fog also comes in quickly. Been there and saw it. You can be walking on totally open beach and then be surrounded in a fog that hardly lets you see your hand in front of your face. I'm surmising that possibly this plane went into such a situation which would have made flying nearly impossible. I don't know how able, way back when, a pilot would have been able to fly via instruments but if they got caught in this fog it would have made flying very difficult.

Our DND is now working with British authorities to have the bodies returned to family there. End to a mystery that was a long time coming but will now hopefully give some families closure.

Good to know that they have finally solved the mystery I myself have little time for the usual conspiracy theories that often come out after such an event, most things have a rational explanation.

At least the descendants of those on board can now have a closure to this long standing mystery. RIP those four military servicemen.

On an aside, I well remember the Avro Anson and a quick Google tells me that 11,020 were built, 2,882 by the Federal Aircraft Ltd of Canada. I am always amazed at the vast numbers of each aircraft type that was built in the war.

I also learned that to retract the undercarriage, the pilot or crew member had to turn a crank handle 140 times. I expect the navigational instruments on the lost aircraft were equally basic and if they did hit a fog bank, navigation would be near impossible.

Apparently this wreck was found by loggers in 2013 but they were unable to get to it until right now. Hard to say what is left of the wreckage all this 72 yrs later added to which is rainforest damage as the west side of the island is constantly wet, damp, raining, fog. Hopefully it'll be reported if there are any other developments.