‘The entire yard was full of bits of engine and fuselage’
It’s 70 years since a plane crash killed 23 but left a child’s doll unscathed. Andrew Forgrave reports...
SEVEN decades after the disaster, Richard Pritchard still remembers the smell from his bedroom window in Caernarfon. “I woke up one morning and the stench of aviation fuel was everywhere,” he said. “I looked outside and the entire yard was full of bits of engine and fuselage.
“Two large wings were propped up, dwarfing the yard’s 15ft walls.”
Then aged six, he had become witness to the immediate aftermath of the second-deadliest commercial airliner crash in Wales.
January 10 was the 70th anniversary of the disaster. Among those of a certain age, the appalling loss of life, in a mountain bog in Snowdonia, still weighs heavily, with memories of that dreadful night passing into local folklore.
Twenty-three people were killed, including the three crew members. The bodies of 11 were never recovered, buried deep within the bog in Cwm Edno, south of Moel Siabod.
Tragically the only items to survive intact were a child’s shoe and doll. They belonged to four-yearold Melody, daughter of Captain Michael Laker, a pilot flying as a passenger with his wife. Finding the doll, as much as anything, “greatly upset” the 100 or so rescuers who reached the crash site.
The disaster involved an Aer Lingus Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft called “St Kevin”. It was en route from Northolt aerodrome, near London, to Dublin, Ireland.
Flying into the teeth of lashing rain, the plane’s final message, received by Nevin Radio Station, south of Anglesey, reported the flight as proceeding normally at the planned height of 6,500ft. Three minutes later the aircraft was heard by locals passing over Llyn Gwynant, near Beddgelert.
At 7.10pm, two people telephoned Caernarfon police to report the sound of a crash, having seen a big glow in the sky above the mountains.
When the first rescue party reached the scene, having battled torrential rain on their hour-long climb in the darkness from Nant Gwynant, they found a scene of utter devastation.
Most of the passengers had been sucked into the bog following the impact, along with parts of the smouldering wreckage. Only the little child’s shoe and doll had been thrown clear of the burning plane. By midnight, more than 100 police officers, soldiers and RAF personnel had arrived at the scene, working by torchlight to extricate bodies from the bog. It was Aer Lingus’ first fatal accident and the carrier’s second-deadliest.
Mr Pritchard recalled how, a little later, his father – also called Richard – was summoned to the scene to take part in the recovery operation.
With his two brothers, Charles and Bob, he ran Pritchard Brothers, a furniture delivery firm with a yard next to Porth yr Aur, Caernarfon’s western gate which, since 1854, has been home to the Royal Welsh Yacht Club.
During World War II, Pritchard Bros was employed by the National Gallery in London to move its art treasures to Manod Quarry in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd. Later, the firm was used by 20th Century Fox to service the set of the 1958 film The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness, filmed in Nantmor, near Beddgelert.
“The studio found that its trucks were too wide and long to navigate the narrow roads,” said Richard Pritchard junior, who still lives at the Caernarfon yard of his childhood. “As my father and uncles had built their own wagons and flatbeds, they were narrower and suitable for the local roads.
“The studio booked all eight, including two without engines. They were towed to the site and used for make-up and wardrobe.”
As owners of one of the biggest fleets in the area, Pritchard Bros was ideally placed to help recover the wreckage of the downed Aer Lingus aircraft. The three brothers were told it had to be done quickly.
“I imagine they didn’t want any member of the public going to the site to see what had happened,” said Richard.
The wreckage was shipped to the Caernarfon yard, prompting one of his earliest and most vivid memories. Where it went from there he doesn’t recollect.
On January 17, while recovery efforts were still ongoing, the crash site was consecrated by a funeral service. A Court of Inquiry was held three months later, in April, which was unable to determine the exact cause of the crash. It concluded the plane had encountered a “powerful down-current of air” on the lee side of Snowdon which “forced the aircraft down into an area of very great turbulence”, causing the pilot, Captain Keohane, to “lose control”.
In the final stages of the dive, part of the starboard wing broke away and landed some 200 yards from the rest of the aircraft.
Most of the passengers were Irish. Others included a German teenager going to live with her grandmother in Dublin. Also among the victims was a South African medical student, aged 22, and a 24-year-old music student at the Royal Irish Academy. Only 12 bodies were recovered. They were buried in a communal grave at Llanbeblig cemetery, Caernarfon.
Later, Snowdonia National Park mounted a slate plaque commemorating the disaster on a rocky outcrop near the crash site. For years the plane’s tail section remained visible in the bog, though this too was later removed.
It is said that, every so often, crash debris still reappears at the surface.
ONE of the issues grabbing attention this week is how the rugby community has rallied around Alfie Pugsley, the 11-year-old told he was “too big” to play under-12s for Oakdale RFC. In other words, according to Alfie’s accuser on Facebook, he was overweight.
The story brings out the bad and the good side of social media. To call somebody out like this, particularly someone so young, is unfair and simply not a nice thing to do. It displays the darker side of social media, how there are some pretty nasty people out there – mostly keyboard warriors.
Then we see the good side, which in this particular case thankfully far, far outweighs the bad, with the way rugby people have rallied around Alfie.
He’s had some wonderful messages of support, not only from the public at large but also from well-known figures like Louis Rees-Zammit, Joe Marler, Andy Powell, Jonathan Davies – and even the New Zealand team.
I also sent a message, saying I would gladly go up to referee a game for Oakdale and speak to Alfie myself in person. I plan to do that very soon.
I trust and hope young Alfie takes on board this overwhelming support from the vast majority, rather than focus on the initial horrible comment. Which, let me emphasise, was a flawed argument in the first place, anyway.
Why? Because rugby always has been and always will be a game for everybody.
It is what makes our sport so special and unique. Whether you’re small, big, thin, tall, fast, slow, whatever, there is a position in the team you can fill. And every single one of those positions matter just as much as any other.
Yes, fly-half is the glamour role. Yes, the wingers tend to score the tries. Yes, the back-rowers seem to be involved non-stop by covering every part of the pitch.
But none of that would be possible without a prop ensuring there is a rock-solid scrum in the first place, a hooker throwing accurately into the lineout, the big second-rows winning the ball and providing bulk at set-pieces. These remain absolute fundamentals to any team and always will be. Okay, at the very highest level a few years back we got to a situation where part of me feared we were heading down the rugby league route of everyone just being musclebound and looking the same. At times you sometimes struggled to differentiate a forward from a back. Fair enough. Your body shape does change as you get fitter, come to terms with and understand the demands of international rugby in the modern age. Fortunately there are always exceptions, which I will come on to.
But the community game, which is what most people play, is completely different. It’s very much a sport for every shape and size. Accordingly you’re able to fit into positions on the field that perhaps wouldn’t be the case in other sports, but rugby does enable it. That applies at every level of the community down, from seniors right down to Alfie’s under-12s team and, indeed, younger. In any case, at a young age who’s to say what is to happen in a few years time? Experience tells us that someone who is the quickest in the team at 10 or 11 isn’t the fastest any more at 15 or 16, when others have developed differently and caught up.
In five years, Alfie might be one of the quickest in Oakdale’s side. Whatever, what must not diminish, despite the horrible comment made on social media, is his enthusiasm to play rugby, which fortunately he seems to have in abundance.
In New Zealand, so I’m told, at younger levels they tend to play on height and weight, rather than age. So the biggest in his class at 12 might well end up playing with 13 or 14-year-olds.
If we want to have a conversation about restructuring our own game down that route, then it’s a discussion we can have. But, let’s be honest, people pick up a rugby ball because they want to be playing with their mates, their immediate peers, be that in school, at a club or in the local park. And, of course, they might have a dream of appearing for Wales one day.
They love the camaraderie, being around their mates of the same age in particular. Bonds are formed which in some cases can carry on right through to seniors rugby.
That’s what a team sport is about. And what makes rugby unique is that you can be 24 stone or 12 stone, but there’s still a place for you somewhere in the side – and you’re as crucial to any success as one another. In any case, my experience tells me it’s the smaller ones who tend to go flying into tackles harder than the bigger guys. They show no fear out on that pitch.
I reiterate, rugby is a game for every shape and size.
Michael Lowry has just been called into Ireland’s squad for the Six Nations on the back of some scintillating form in the back three for Ulster. He is one of the smallest around, standing at 5ft 7in, but he’s also one of the best right at this moment in time. I have been hugely impressed by him since I refereed him for the first time a few years ago.
Lowry is more topical because the Six Nations is almost upon us again, but Shane Williams is perhaps a better and more well-known example. He too stood at 5ft 7in, yet never once flinched in the face of any of the bigger guys.
Shane brought his own unique skills to the Wales set-up and, small in stature or not, was good enough to win World Player of the Year.
We loved watching Shane, he was box office, lit up the game and had Welsh fans on the edge of their seats whenever the ball was in his hands and the try-line anywhere near in sight.
But you ask Warren Gatland and I bet he will be the first to tell you that Adam Jones, built differently and nowhere near as nimble or quick, was as central to any success Wales achieved as even the great Shane was. Adam brought different strengths to Wales and the Lions, but he too was hugely important.
That happens in rugby – at the very highest level, the community game and also at age-grade level. It is a game for every shape, size and skill – big, small, athletic, strong.
Everyone has a role to play. Young Alfie should always remember that. So should his detractors.
I am looking forward very much to refereeing him and the two teams very soon. I hope to see some of you there too, showing your support.
@Nigelrefowens