Locations of all the aircraft that crashed in the Peak District National Park in the United Kindom between 1939 and 1963 all but two aircraft were military belonging to the United States of America, United Kingdom and Canada
Hi Danescombe,
It has to be remembered that most of the pilots in WW2 were very young and the training time given was not really enough. This lack of flying hours experience combined with tiredness/stress made flying in good weather difficult, add to this poor weather conditions, making navigation diffucult and prone to errors.
Most crashes were the result of navigation errors and the crew became lost. In this situation the only thing to do was to get a ground positioning by dropping below the cloud, and looking for roads, railways and rivers in the hope they could establish their position. Sadly on these occasions these pilots flew their aircraft into the hills they were not expecting.
The Peak was probably busy with air traffic due to ferrying flights from the USAAF base at Burton Wood, Warrington delivering aircraft to squadrons around the country.
Maybe the Pennines were considered as 'higher ground' rather than mountainous?
Fifty crash sites in a relatively small area seems a lot, but there are many crash sites throughout the UK, the ones in the Dark Peak attract attention because of the detailed documentation available, and the Peak is more accessible than other mountainous areas and attracts many visitors from the cities of Sheffield and Manchester.
