Sabre Mk 6 23380
Crashed into the summit of Iron Crag on 26/06/1959 at 13:11. The aircraft took off from Prestwick at 13:00 enroute to his home base of Grostenquin in France via a stop off at RAF Wethersfield in Essex to refuel. He never made it to Essex.
When the pilot was found his watch had stopped at 13:11 so is presumed to be the time of impact.
It was a misty/cloudy day and the pilot had climbed to avoid the Scottish mountains clearing those but not the English Lake District Mountains. He descended through cloud and hit Iron Crag (2077 feet High) just below the summit.. no one will ever know why, perhaps he thought he was out over the Irish Sea perhaps he thought he had flown further than he actually had done, but that is all conjecture, no one will ever know why for certain.
What is certain is that at 13:11 the aircraft hit the hill and exploded in a ball of flame, breaking up and tumbling for a half mile down the hillside. Much of the wreckage remains on site today, the tail was removed to the now defunct Millom Aviation Museum (whereabouts now unknown). Dials and plates etc have been pillaged over the years but after that pretty much 75% of the aircraft remains on the hillside. With time pressing I only covered the main areas of crash site and didn’t descend the half mile to the engine and the furthest wing fragments.
The main areas of wreckage are around 400 – 450 m from the summit although there is still evidence of the gouge from the initial impact and a small collection of wreckage fragments have been placed in the gouge.
Walking down to the crash site it is very clear the aircraft exploded, evidence of the fire still remains in areas of scorched peat and heavy fragments as well as light ones are scattered across the scree field.
Below follows an account, found online (http://www.c-and-e-museum.org), by a man called Geoff Bland who was involved in the search for the aircraft and covers his initial observations. I haven’t edited it in any way.
‘’ The radio news reported a Canadian F-86 jet missing, possibly in the lake district. Low cloud held up the search until the following day when the weather cleared and the plane was found on Iron Cragg.
The next day I set off alone from Ennerdale and went up Silvercove Beck turning right at the top. Being on unfamiliar territory, I followed the wall that runs along the skyline in a northwest direction. It was a fine sunny day and as I approached the summit I could smell paraffin on the southern side of the wall. I saw the impact point which looked like a deep plough mark in the ground.The aircraft, on a southerly course, must have been going downwards to have cleared the wall and to have struck where it did. The pilot possibly looking for a landmark on that cloudy day.
There must have been an explosion, for about 50 yards further down the tufts of grass, in a circular area, were scorched on one side, but still green on the sheltered side. This area would be around 30 yards in diameter. Now going down the hill, I began to find more peices of the plane - smaller, lighter parts that had fluttered and fallen, the heavier and more solid parts had kept flying onwards.
The area of the crash was very rough ground, with boulders and rocks amongst the heather and grass.Behind one of the rocks I found all the pilots personal posessions and a logbook, including his wallet which contained photos and nightclub tickets from Canadian cities such as Quebec and Montreal. Also I found his black laced shoes which were badly cut up. (All these items had been gathered up by the RAF Search party, but were lost in the mist). The pilots name was Robert G Starling. The birdman had fallen.
Further downhill lay quite large pieces of wings and the tail, amongst hundreds of scattered grafments. I then moved down to the soft ground of the valley, to where I was told later, the machine guns or cannons had been found embedded in the earth. Moving on and rising now to the lower slopes of Caw Fell, I saw the engine which had struck the rocks higher up with such force that part of the rock was powdered. The engine had then rolled back down the slope. The distance from the engine back to that first impact point would be just over half a mile.
After a while I climbed slowly back up the hill, retrieving the pilots gear on the way. This I returned to RAF Silloth the next day, and an Officer from the airfield came to my home to thank me for returning the pilots things.
Having spent several hours there, the scene was well planted in my mind, and so it was that 33 years later, I returned to the site with my fellow walking friend Graham Golder, and his son Shane. It was a strange experience to find that most of the pieces of the aircraft were still lying there, having survived all those seasons of wind, rain, snow and frost.
We slowly moved along, examining the parts with great interest, and for me it was like going back in time. Some time passed and we headed back towards Silver Cove on a beautiful summer evening. Then I thought back to when this peaceful and lonely lakeland valley was visited for a few moments by awful destruction and sudden death, and I thought of that young pilot whos short life had ended so tragically in the summer of 1959.
Geoff Bland
Great Corby
Carlisle
Cumbria’’Today, much of the wreckage remains as described by Geoff. It is one of the most complete crash sites in England. It is one I have wanted to visit for a long time but it is a very long way from anywhere and the routes up are all very steep, combined with it not being on a ’honey pot fell’ where the evidence of the crash sites seem to be removed, its possibly why the wreckage remains in situ.
A report on http://www.yorkshire-aircraft.co.uk, says that
‘‘Robert "Robin" Starling was the son of Robert and Beryl Starling and was born on 30th October 1932 in Asansol, India. He enlisted into the RCAF on 23rd October 1953 in Montreal, Canada. His parents had either ran or where running Powri Hill Colliery in India at the time of his death.’’
The pilot was buried at Brookwood Cemetery Surrey.
