I’ve solved mystery of Glenn Miller plane crash
Author: RAF didn’t bomb bandleader
AN author claims to have solved the 70-year mystery of band leader Glenn Miller’s death using the diary of a teenage plane spotter.
Historian Dennis Spragg says he has evidence that the musician’s plane was not downed by an RAF bomb, but crashed due to human error.
Miller, 40, was flying from England to Paris in 1944 when his plane is thought to have crashed in the Channel. Bombs jettisoned by returning Lancaster bombers were blamed.
But Mr Spragg says a diary that featured on Antiques Roadshow holds they key. It was written by plane spotter Richard Anderton, 17 at the time, who spotted Miller’s plane over Reading. It proved the plane took a diversion that added 40 miles to the journey to Paris. It means it would have been impossible for the plane to have been in the jettison zone for the bombs at the correct time. And Mr Spragg says it shows the three people on the plane, which was never found, died due to human error and miscalculation. Mr Spragg was commissioned by Miller’s family to investigate and has published a book of his findings. He said: “The Anderton diaries were the icing on the cake in this investigation.”