THE PILOT OF the C152 and a colleague planned to fly from Inverness to Benbecula for a business meeting. The day before, he telephoned Benbecula ATC to seek landing permission. He asked about the forecast and, on being informed that quite poor weather was expected, the pilot said he would call before departure to check.
At 0841 the following day, 13 December 2000, he telephoned Inverness ATC to 'book out' and advised that his route would take him from Inverness to Garve and 'through that way'. There is no record of a call to Benbecula for weather.
The weather for the departure from Inverness was fine. A helicopter pilot who flew along the Achnasheen valley just before, estimated the cloudbase over the eastern end of the valley near Garve to be approximately 3,000 feet reducing to about 2,000 feet toward the west coast. He reported showers becoming more frequent.
The aircraft took off at 0856. At 0913 the pilot reported "abeam Dingwall at 3,500 feet". Eyewitnesses saw an aircraft flying over the pilot's place of work in Muir of Ord and later circling above a cloud layer three miles to the south of Garve.
At about 1130, the company due to host the pilot in Benbecula telephoned the pilot's place of work to advise them that the aircraft had not arrived, and also tried to contact the pilot and his passenger by mobile phone.
By 1500 the Rescue Co-ordination Centre at RAF Kinloss had been informed. A request on local radio resulted in a large number of reported sightings, or hearings, but no further evidence. Radar recordings showed no trace of the aircraft. In the following days a large scale land-and-air search was conducted over the Scottish Highlands but without success.
On 23 February 2001, a hill-walker discovered an aircraft wheel and a life-raft in a gully on the southern side of the Liathach Mountains near Torridon, Wester Ross. A search by the Torridon Mountain Rescue Team found the wreckage of G-BHPX, together with the bodies of its occupants, at 2,700 feet amsl to the east-south-east of the Mullach an Rathain peak in the Liathach Mountains. The wreckage was largely covered by snow and a detailed examination was impossible at first.
The great degree of destruction was consistent with a high-speed impact. The tail had whipped over the top of the cabin area, striking the ground ahead of the nose before rebounding. It is likely that the aircraft was under control and unlikely that any action had been taken by the pilot to avoid hitting the mountain. The occupants had probably not seen the high ground before impact. Although the exact amount of snow is not known, it is possible that the pilot failed to see the mountain due to 'white out' conditions in a snow shower.
The evening before, the pilot had discussed the route with a friend who was a commercial pilot. The route they discussed involved flying from Garve along the Achnasheen valley to Plockton on the shores of Loch Carron and then flying either north or south around the Isle of Skye coast before crossing the sea to Benbecula. A route using the Torridon valley was not discussed, but the pilot was familiar with the area.
The pilot was not qualified to fly in cloud and it was expected that he would attempt to fly in VMC conditions at around 3,500 feet. A month before, he had flown the same route in a C172 and on the return leg, flying in the valleys below the level of the mountain tops, he had encountered a moderate shower and turbulence. After landing he had expressed some concern at the experience and witnesses expected that if he encountered bad weather en route he would be more likely to turn around than to descend to follow the route in the valleys.
The search and rescue effort began just over four hours after the aircraft's ETA at Benbecula and not long before sunset. If the pilot had filed a VFR flight plan in accordance with the advice in the UK AIP, overdue action would have started