Crash Landing at Dunsop!

This article tells the story of an incident I witnessed some years ago whilst walking along the Hodder valley in Lancashire.

In August 2012 I was out walking from Knowlemere estate towards Whitewell, enjoying the late summer scenery and minding my own business, as you do, when I espied (good word that, I’ll have to use it more!) a small plane circling over the valley which seemed to be in some sort of trouble.

As I was watching this plane it started to descend out of view below the treetops, I remember very clearly just standing there like an idiot, not knowing what to do, but after a few seconds I composed myself and managed to jog along the path and scramble up a hill to get a better view, that’s where I took this photo.

Luckily the pilot managed to avoid the electric wires and sheep to land safely, you can see the furrow in the field where he landed. I must admit there was no small amount of dread when the plane went silent and disappeared and I was expecting a thump or a cloud of smoke but luckily not, it would have taken me ages to find a way over the river Hodder and get over there as well.

The funny thing was the sheep just carried on grazing around this plane like nothing untoward had even happened!

Here’s a link to the Air Accident Investigation Branch report of the incident;

https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports/cessna-172s-skyhawk-d-efuc-2-august-2012

A B-H