Air crash was like something out of the
Fifty years ago, a number of north Somerset communities were shattered by the news that an air crash in Switzerland had taken dozens of their friends, neighbours and family members, many of them young mothers. Eugene Byrne recalls the tragedy
FRED Tjolle, a former Bristol travel agent, ran an antique stall in St Nicholas Market. His son was a partner in Unicorn Travel of Park Street, which was why he was on Invicta Airlines Flight 435 from Lulsgate to BaselMulhose.
He was one of 139 passengers, most of whom were women. Everyone, he said, was happy. A day’s outing to Switzerland in an aeroplane in 1973 was exciting; many had joined in impromptu singsongs as though they were on a coach excursion to the seaside.
“We went up in the air and down again, and then went straight into the wood.
“It was like something out of the cinema, except it was happening to us.”
Local villagers heard the plane crash, and some tried to make their way to the site, guided by the shouts and screams of survivors, but they were frustrated by continuing snowfalls. Some were confused by the echo of the crash in the valley and started out in the wrong direction.
After the initial impact, dazed survivors tried to help one another. Mr Tjolle, who had been sitting in the tail section of the plane, went with some others to seek help.
Three quarters of an hour later, they came to a farmhouse.
“They were wonderful there. The farmer and his two daughters got us food and hot drinks, and bathed the wounds of the injured.
“Later doctors arrived at the farmhouse and we were taken to a sort of clearing station, and from there to hospital.”
Back at the crash site, other survivors tried to help each other. It was bitterly cold and the snow was driving down. A 23-year-old nurse from Axbridge, who had never flown before, led everyone in singing hymns to keep their spirits up and to try and prevent hypothermia.
One of the first local people to reach the crash site was a local farmer’s wife. “We tried to dig out the injured,” she said. “I think there must have been 40 or 50 of them.
“We took them to different houses and collected blankets, but many of them died. I am afraid there was little we could do.”
One of the others to first reach the scene was the Mayor of the
nearby village of Hochwald. Seeing a woman in the tail section alive, but hanging upside down in her seat from the seat-belt, he freed her with the crook of his walking stick.
The whole area had been hit by heavy blizzards the night before and there were telephone and power outages. It was an hour and a half before the Swiss emergency services arrived on the scene. Soon the Swiss army was alerted too, sending in heavy transport, but not before the local police had enlisted farmers to bring in tractors to clear a path to the site so that ambulances could get through.
The crash of Flight IM-435 in woods just inside Switzerland at 09.13 GMT on April 10 1973 resulted in 108 dead. But almost miraculously there would be 37 survivors. Some had serious injuries which would keep them in hospital for months, but eight were released from hospital within a few hours. One of the cabin crew, who had been close to Mr Tjolle in the rear of the plane, was completely unhurt.
The sudden deaths of 108 people in any kind of accident is a tragedy for their families and friends, but there was something especially numbing about these losses. More than half of those who died were women from a handful of Somerset towns and villages – Axbridge, Cheddar, Congresbury and Winscombe.
There were other passengers from a few other north Somerset villages, and some from Bristol, including a school headmaster who had joined the trip on a whim as he fancied an outing during the Easter holidays. He survived and was among the first to return home.
The day had started so well. Most of the passengers were members of various local women’s social
We took them to different houses and collected blankets, but many of them died. I am afraid there was little we could do A local farmer’s wife
groups including the Axbridge Women’s Guild, a women’s skittles team from Congresbury, the Cheddar Mothers’ Night Out Club ... The trip – just a day there and back again, with many planning to take a coach excursion to Lucerne for some shopping and sightseeing – had been long planned. Their tickets cost £16.50 each and it had already been postponed for a week because the original tour operator had gone out of business.
But very early in the morning that day, a coach collected many of them and got them to Lulsgate in good time for the 7.19am departure.
The flight by the four-engine Vickers Vanguard was uneventful until its approach to Basel, where there was a heavy snowstorm and poor visibility. The plane pulled out of its first approach and went around to try again.
An investigation later concluded that Captain Anthony Dorman and
co-pilot Captain Ivor Terry may have been disorientated by confusion of instrument landing aids and poor reception of medium-wave landing beacons. A former pilot also said that the captains might have been led astray by “ghost” transmissions from electric power lines, possibly exacerbated by the weather.
It crashed into a wooded area 16 miles south of the airport in the parish of Hochwald. It somersaulted and several parts caught fire. Everyone in the front part of the aircraft was killed, while most of the survivors were in the tail sec
tion, which was left mostly intact.
In the end, fathers and family members would have the heartbreaking task of telling 55 children that they were now motherless.
But not before an agonising wait for many. Some went to Bristol Airport in the hope of getting news, just because it seemed like the appropriate place to go, even though Invicta Airways and Bristol City Council had set up helplines for relatives needing information. At the same time, the communities rallied around; Rotarians, Lions Club members and others organised to help in any way they could.
The wait went on and on for many. While many relatives of survivors had received news by 7pm the same evening, there were others who had lived through the crash but were unconscious and could not yet give their names.
Many relatives, mostly husbands and fathers, would fly out in the following days. The lucky ones would be visiting hospitals. The less fortunate would be identifying their loved ones.
Axbridge will be marking the anniversary on Monday April 10 – Easter Bank Holiday Monday –