- 50th anniversary of Jersey’s deadliest plane crash on 14 April 1965
- 26 people died when a flight from Paris crashed into a field near Jersey Airport
- Islander Bernard ‘Bunny’ Syvret saw the plane coming down
- Read below: The full transcript of the last few miniutes of the flight
ON 14 April 1965 Islander Bernard ‘Bunny’ Syvret witnessed the horror of Jersey’s worst air crash, when a passenger plane nose-dived into a field in St Peter.
It was a foggy evening 50 years ago, shortly after 6 pm, when flight 1030X from Paris Orly airport came in too low on its second approach and struck a landing lights pole at Oak Walk, at the top of Mont Fallu.
The British United (CI) Airways twin-engine Dakota C-47 lost its right wing, turned on its back and nose-dived into a field, killing 26 of the 27 people on board.
Mr Syvret (86), who had served in the RAF and was working at Jersey Airport at the time, lived beneath the approach flight path and regularly watched planes coming in to land.
His wife, Peggy, dashed to the scene – 100 yards from their house on Rue de la Hague – after hearing the accident and rescued the sole survivor of the tragedy, a 22-year-old French air hostess named Dominique Sillière.
Mr Syvret, who was 36 years old at the time, remembers the incident vividly.
‘I was working at the Airport when the air crash happened,’ he said. ‘But I was off sick at the time with bronchitis.
‘We lived right next door to where the crash was. If the pilot had turned the wrong way on the night I would have had it.
‘Every day I would go outside and have a look up to see whether aircraft would be able to get in or not.
‘This particular day there was thick fog.
‘I think I had the window open and I heard the noise of an aircraft coming in, so I went outside.
‘I looked up at the plane and I thought there’s no chance he’s going to get in in this weather.’
The aircraft flew back up unable to make a safe landing but the pilot, Guernseyman Captain Peter Self, steered the plane back round for a second approach.
‘I went back in the lounge and I heard the noise of the plane coming again,’ said Mr Syvret. ‘So I went outside and heard a crack and I saw him pulling away from me. I thought what happened there?
‘I thought – pull back! Pull back! Then he turned a sharp right and I saw the wing come off. He turned over and nose-dived into the field – I saw the whole thing happen.’
Both Mr Syvret and his wife acted quickly to help the crash victims.
‘My first thought was the fire service,’ he said. ‘I passed the wife, who was in the lounge. She had been upstairs when she heard the crash.
‘She had seen the aircraft in the field and she shot past me outside.
‘I went next door to try to use the phone line in my mother’s place but the overhead phone lines were down.
‘When I came back, I asked the kids where their mother was and they said she had gone out.
‘She must have just shot out and jumped over the hedge to rush out and help the people in the crash.’
Mr Syvret then took action himself to assist the emergency services and potential survivors and headed outside towards the crash site.
‘As I walked out there was a Jaguar parked in the middle of the road. Nobody could get past so it had to be moved.
‘I had never driven a Jaguar before but I jumped in, started it up and reversed it into my drive. Whether it scratched or not was tough luck.
‘I went down the road and one fire engine came up and I told him where to go. There were police cars coming from all directions.
‘I carried on like that and was standing around directing the traffic for a while, before someone came up to me – I think it might have been a Centenier – and he said to me: “Thanks, mate. You’ve done well.”‘
But there was another shock in store for Mr Syvret when he returned home to find his wife missing.
‘I went back home and asked the kids where their mother was. The kids said they hadn’t seen her and she hadn’t come back and I thought where’s she gone?
‘Two to three hours later she turned up and told me she had been to the Hospital. She burst into tears and I asked what had happened to her.
‘She told me: “Nothing’s happened to me – it’s what I’ve just done. I dragged the hostess away from the aircraft – she was stuck and it was on fire.”‘
‘I couldn’t believe it and I told her she was crazy. What was she doing going towards an aircraft on fire?’
Mrs Syvret had rescued the French air hostess, who had two broken legs, and had pulled her across the recently ploughed field to safety from the burning wreckage. She had then accompanied her in the ambulance to the Hospital.
She was assisted by a woman called Joan Egré, whose father owned the field. Miss Egré went back to the crash site to help the other victims but found it was too late to rescue anyone else.
Mrs Syvret, who died last year, received the Humane Society’s bronze medal for her actions but the trauma of the night took its toll on her.
‘I felt awful at the time of the air crash,’ said Mr Syvret, a great-grandfather who lives in St Peter’s village. ‘It took me a little while to get over it but it took the wife a long time to get over it.
‘She had to have treatment because she couldn’t sleep. She used to say to me: “Was there anyone else I could have got out? Could I have saved more people?”
‘I would tell her that there wasn’t any more she could have done, but she couldn’t get it out of her head. She was sick for a long time.’
Eventually a course of treatment helped Mrs Syvret back to better health and the horrors of that night weren’t enough to stop the couple travelling by air.
‘Just over a year after, in the summertime, I said we are going to go on holiday to see our friends in Plymouth,’ said Mr Syvret. ‘And we were going to be flying.
‘She said no at first but in the end we did it and after that day she was never worried about flying again.’
Of the 26 people killed in the crash three were crew. Four people from Jersey lost their lives, as well as five from Guernsey.
A MINISTRY of Aviation investigation was launched into the crash and a report was published in 1966.
The report concluded that ‘the aircraft struck the approach lighting when it was flown below the safe approach path during an approach to land in conditions of low cloud and poor visibility’.
The report also outlined that weather information given during the flight from Paris Orly to Jersey stated that there was visibility of 100 metres at Jersey Airport. Precipitation was described as ‘very consistently bad’ and the cloud ‘really thick’.
Visibility was also reported to be 100 metres in Guernsey but the aircrew were advised that conditions at Dinard and St Brieuc airports in France were ‘fine’, with two kilometres and one kilometre of visibility at each respectively.
A weather report in Jersey eight minutes after the accident said that fog had reduced visibility to 70 metres.
- Captain Peter Charles Edward Self, who was a 31-year-old Guernseyman and occupied the pilots seat at the time of the crash.
- First officer Mr James Edward Lockhart-Mure, who was 27 years old and was believed to be standing in the flight deck at the time of the accident.
- Second officer Howard Christopher Clark Greenway, who was 24 years old and occupied the co-pilots seat.
- Miss Dominique Sillière, a 22-year-old air hostess and the sole survivor of the crash. She had been working for British United (C.I.) Airlines for one month, after a year working for Air France. Miss Sillière visited Jersey Airport again four months after the crash and received a heros welcome. She was greeted by Peggy Syvret, who presented her with a bouquet of flowers.[/breakout]
Time:17:43
G-ANTB: Approach golf alfa November tango bravo
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango B good evening understand you have the seventeen twenty weather and are defending to fifteen hundred feet on the Q F E one zero seven.
G-ANTB: Tango bravo that’s affirmative
JERSEY APPROACH: Your intentions are you diverting
G-ANTB: Er we’ll come down on the I L S and then overshoot and go to dinard
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo
Time: 17:48
G-ANTB: Er T B can we go down to one
JERSEY APPROACH: Affirmative T B check Q F E is one zero
G-ANTB: zero seven thank you
Time: 17:49
G-ANTB: T B can you give me a range from the beacon please
JERSEY APPROACH: Yes about er four miles
G-ANTB: ‘Kyou
Time: 17:51
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo the er runway visual range is now two five zero two fifty
G-ANTB: Sir
Time: 17:53
G-ANTB: Beacon inbound
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo
JERSEY APPROACH: Er there’s no change in the weather from looking out of the window
G-ANTB: —ger
Time: 17:54
JERSEY APPROACH: —ree and a half miles to go
G-ANTB: T B
Time: 17:55
JERSEY APPROACH: Surface wind now is er two six zero fifteen knots and the visibility sixty metres eight oktas surface
G-ANTB: Tango B
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango B two miles from touchdown
G-ANTB: Tango B
Time: 17:56
G-ANTB: Give us a one mile check please when we’re there
JERSEY APPROACH: Er tango B you’re just coming up to one mile now
G-ANTB: —ger
Time: 17:57
JERSEY APPROACH: See anything at all tango bravo
G-ANTB: Yes we saw lights but we’re a bit to the right actually and er a bit near the old steeple
G-ANTB: I wonder if you’d er just lead us round to the outer marker and we’ll have one more go
JERSEY APPROACH: Yes O K
G-ANTB: Now at one thousand turning onto about one eight
JERSEY APPROACH: Roger
G-ANTB: Er we’re now steering one six five
Time: 17:59
JERSEY APPROACH: Roger turn left heading er zero nine zero (the time is one seven five nine)
G-ANTB: Zero nine zero tango B
Time: 18:00
G-ANTB: And I wonder if you’d be good enough just to er give a check on the dinard weather for us
JERSEY APPROACH: Yes will do tango bravo
G-ANTB: ‘Kyou
JERSEY APPROACH: Make it zero seven er zero now left onto zero seven zero
G-ANTB: Zero seven zero tango B
Time: 18:01
JERSEY APPROACH: Left left onto zero two zero
G-ANTB: zero two zero tango B
Time: 18:02
JERSEY APPROACH: continue left onto three six zero
G-ANTB: Three six zero tango B
JERSEY APPROACH: About a mile south of the I L S this time about five to five and a half miles out
G-ANTB: Tango B
JERSEY APPROACH: —tinue left onto er three two zero for taking you to the I L S
G-ANTB: Three two zero tango B
JERSEY APPROACH: ???? up your own headings in the I L S
G-ANTB: Tango bravo
Time: 18:03
JERSEY APPROACH: five miles from touchdown now
G-ANTS: Tango B
JERSEY APPROACH: Just coming up to four miles now tango B are you established
G-ANTB: Affirmative tango bravo we’re just by the outer marker
JERSEY APPROACH: ??? ??? ( distorted words, sounds like ‘Three miles’)
G-ANTB: T B
Time: 18:05
JERSEY APPROACH: The R V R still two fifty
G-ANTB: Tango bravo
JERSEY APPROACH: Surface wind is two six zero at er eighteen
G-ANTB: Tango B
JERSEY APPROACH: ??? And a half miles now (Beginning clipped- believed to be ‘one’)
Time: 18:06
JERSEY APPROACH: ??? mile from touchdown (Beginning clipped- believed to be ‘one’)
G-ANTB: How many
JERSEY APPROACH: Three quarters of a mile now and left of the centreline
G-ANTB: T B
Time: 18:07 (channel quiet)
Time: 18:08 (channel quiet)
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo Jersey do you read
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo Jersey do you read
Time: 18.09
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo Jersey
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo Jersey do you read
Time: 18:10 (channel quiet)
JERSEY APPROACH: Tango bravo Jersey do you read
Time: 18:11 (channel quiet)
The 1965 crash was the second time that a Dakota C-47 plane had come down in Jersey.
In 1944, a Dakota C-47 transporter crashed into the sea off Bouley Bay. The wreckage was found by divers in 2006. A few divers had come across the wreckage over the years, but its location had never been revealed.
Divers Tom Baudains and Trevor Le Cornu, of T&T Divers, found the wreckage of the US Army Air Force Douglas C-47 transporter – the ubiquitous Dakota – when they were recently recovering lobster pots for a local fisherman.
The wreckage was discovered off Bouley Bay at a depth of about 12 metres below the level of the lowest spring tide. It was partly covered in netting, which was removed to make the area safer for other divers.
‘We knew roughly where the wreckage was but had never found it,’ said Mr Baudains.
‘We were freeing lobster pots and discovered that they were tangled in trawl nets which were attached to the wreck.’
The propellers of the C-47 Wright radials were discovered 75 feet down on the sea-bed by local diver Doug Crawford and were lifted in November 1983 – they are now on display in the Jersey War Tunnels – but the divers who found them could not locate the rest of the wreckage.
‘It would deteriorate pretty rapidly if it was brought to the surface, so it will hopefully become an exciting dive site,’ said Mr Baudains.
‘We have many shipwrecks around our coast but it is unusual to find aeroplane wreckages because most planes that came down in the war crashed far out to sea.’
AT 8 pm on 30 October 1944 1st Lieutenant Robert Blackler was piloting his C-47 transporter from Paris to Cherbourg when he became lost due to radio failure and navigational error.
Having missed the French coast, he realised that he was over land and circled with his navigational lights switched on – a recognised signal that the aircraft was in distress.
Despite this, the Dakota was fired on by German antiaircraft guns and was hit on the port propeller, losing all elevator control. (It is recorded that the German officer in command of the flak battery which brought the plane down was later reduced to the ranks).
Lt Blackler brought the Dakota to a comparatively smooth crash-landing in the sea off Bouley Bay. He immediately climbed on to the wing to launch the dinghy, but fell into the sea and the damaged dinghy sank.
As soon as it became apparent that the aircraft would sink the 11 remaining men on board, they all leapt into the sea with the exception of one, who clung to the tail and went down with the plane.
The passengers all tried to scramble ashore but the tide was so strong that it flung them against the rocks repeatedly and they were unable to gain a hold.
Realising that he would be seriously hurt if he continued his attempts to crawl ashore, Lt Blackler swam out to sea for 30 yards and floated. The other survivors vainly tried to climb on to the rock until, overcome by exhaustion, they all drowned.
The Germans were soon on the scene and hauled Lt Blackler ashore.
He was taken to the General Hospital and treated for severe cuts and bruising before being taken to the prisoner of war camp at South Hill.
All the victims were eventually buried in the Allied War Cemetery in the Howard Davis Park.
