I found this today in a small rock gully off the beaten track about 0.5km NE of Cnap Coire na Spreidhe It was thin and light so I reckon aluminium and the underside had no paint.
There was nothing else like it close by. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what it might be ?


Helen

Helen

I'm fairly sure its the remnants of a crashed plane, probably the one which came down on the 5th April 2008 very close to where you found the piece. Sadly the pilot lost his life.

Article here [news.stv.tv]

I did think it looked like it might be off a plane Al, and now you mention it I remember that crash. Was a Saturday and visibility was awful. I think ski patrol helped with the rescue/salvage. I remember finding what looked like log book material on the way over to the slope below the Cairngorm tor at a later date. Very sad.

Helen

Hi Helen,

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch ( [www.aaib.gov.uk] ) may be interested in this.

The crash mentioned above was a Piper Cherokee reg G-BSYC (single emgine), and all the pictures of that plane are of it painted blue and white. Your picture looks more like part of an engine cowl or a flap pylon of a larger aircraft.

This is pretty mysterious - I've spent the past few years visiting air crash sites in the Scottish mountains and from my experience of these sorts of things I'd say this was a section of aircraft wreckage as well. The Piper Cherokee that crashed near the Ptarmigan restaurant in April 2008 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7332901.stm) seems like the obvious candidate for this piece of wreckage (if that's what it is) but there's a couple of problems with this - as Hipennine points out, the Piper Cherokee had no red livery, and the wreckage looks pretty beaten up, again, from my experience of these things, this could indicate that it has been at the location for well over 30 or 40 years. There are old aircraft crash sites at various places in the Cairngorm mountains, but none (to my knowledge) near the summit of Cairngorm, so I'd be interested if anyone had ideas about this.

From memory, this piece was present in the area of El Alamein prior to the crash of the Piper Cherokee. What I assume to have been this piece, as well as another larger piece (which was also battered and in red livery) - were residing within the refuge in 2009, but had vanished by the time of my next visit (presumably discarded elsewhere on the hillside by another visitor rather than being removed, as evidenced by this photo). See attached picture - the second piece is interesting?

Attachments: Screen Shot 2012-08-20 at 17.05.33.png (307kB)  

Many years ago, possibly late 1960s, a light aircraft landed on the snow in that area. The aircraft was damaged and unable to take off. The pilot used the excuse for landing "that he was testing to see whether his aircraft could be used in mountain rescue". It proved to be not a good idea. Although I didn't see the aircraft I believe staff from CML manhandled it back th the car park. That is probably where these bits came from.

I seem to remember it was reported in the Press and Journal.

Interesting photo of other remnants in the refuge Jamie. I'm not that sure though that the piece I found, which yesterday was in the small rocky gully just behind and not far below the refuge, is one of them.

I've rotated your image in photoshop and even allowing for further loss of paint over time the red and silver patterns don't seem to match up Yesterday was the first visit I've made on foot and where it was lying would have been covered with snow on my previous visit.

Not a place to attempt landing a plane Sunshine! I can see why it wasn't successful but glad that the pilot lived to tell the tale.

Nice to have the mystery solved.





Helen