Category: Newspaper Reports

  • Grief comes to five villages

    Grief comes to five villages

    By John King, John Davies, John Christopher. Daily Express Wednesday April 11th 1973 FIVE VILLAGES in Somerset lost their wives and mothers yesterday when a day-trip airliner crashed in Switzerland, killing 106 of the 145 people on board.  Names of survivors came in last night as husbands who had been baby-sitting waitedat Bristol’s Lulsgate Airport…

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  • 34 SURVIVORS NAMED

    34 SURVIVORS NAMED

    Daily Telegraph April 11th 1973 Invicta International Airlines said in London last night that 39 of the 139 passengers and six crew of the Vanguard Survived the crash. The following list of 34 of the survivors, with five names to be added later, was issued  Not seriously Ill: Miss J. Besley, Mrs J. Bowen. Master R.…

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  • The 39 who escaped

    The 39 who escaped

    Report in the Daily Express April 11th 1973 THESE ARE the survivors of the Invicta crash as issued late last night by the company Miss J. Besley, Mrs. J. Bowen, Master R. Bowen, Mrs. M. Carver, Mrs. S. Cole (released from hospital), Mrs. I. Hooper. Mr. B. Jones (released). Mrs. M. Sampson, Mrs. K. Scott,…

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  • APPALLING WEATHER Within landing limits 

    APPALLING WEATHER Within landing limits 

    Daily Telegraph April 11th 1973 OUR AIR CORRESPONDENT writes: -The weather conditions at Base were appalling and this may have contributed to the cause of the crash. Snow is one of the worst conditions for pilots. It is confusing and disorientating. But the Vanguard pilot should have been able to cope. The Vanguard has no automatic…

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  • VILLAGES WAIT IN FEAR 

    VILLAGES WAIT IN FEAR 

    Daily Telegraph April 11th 1973 By Christopher Bramwell By AS details of the Swiss air crash and names of the dead filtered through, people in the four Somerset villages from which most of the victims came were numbed last night.  In Abridge, whose population is only about 1,200. it was feared that over 50 young mothers,…

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  • Day-trip wives and mothers killed as plane crashes in blizzard 

    Day-trip wives and mothers killed as plane crashes in blizzard 

    Daily Telegraph April 11th 1973 By Terence Shaw, in Hochwald, near Basle. Day-trip wives and mothers killed as plane crashes in blizzard  106 DIE IN SHOPPERS’ SPECIAL  Rescuers brave 3ft drifts  MORE than 100 Britons, most of them women from four Somerset villages, died yesterday as the Vanguard airliner taking them on £16 day shopping trip…

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  • Travel firm’s leader is in hospital 

    Travel firm’s leader is in hospital 

    Western Daily Press April 11th 1973 By Garth Pearce  THE FATAL flight was organised by Unicorn Travel, of Park Street, Bristol It was just another of the routine day return i excursions from Bristol to Switzerland. which it has been running since August. The cost was £16.50. And the advertising leaflet for the trip said “Let…

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  • Victims’ MP calls for full report

    Victims’ MP calls for full report

    Western Daily Press April 11th 1973 By Preston Witts  AEROSPACE Minister Mr. Michael Heseltine will be questioned about the air disaster in the Commons today, Mr. Jerry Wiggin. Tory MP for Weston-super-Mare, the constituency of most of the crash victims. had put down a private notice question. He will ask Mr. Heseltine for a full statement…

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  • LAUGHS ON THE COACH 

    LAUGHS ON THE COACH 

    Western Daily Press April 11th 1973 COACH owner Mr. Oliver Lyons, of Blagdon, took 90 of the passengers to Bristol’s Lulsgate airport. He was to have returned for them at 11.30 p.m. last night. “It is heartbreaking,’ he said at Blagdon parish council meeting last night. “so as I drove happy around Axbridge, Cheddar, Wrington. and…

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  • Offers of aid flood town

    Offers of aid flood town

     Western Daily Press April 11th 1973 THE GOOD Samaritans of the West poured offers of help into the stunned town last night. “In fact, we have more help than we can possibly. use at the moment, Cheddar Vale Lions Club said president Mr. Leavey. Norman He said local organisations are combining services to find out what…

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