1956: FORTY four Royal Air Force men and one Army private from the Suez Canal zone died with a crew of five in the blazing at wreckage of a home-bound airliner which crashed at the “Blue Grotto” beauty spot in Malta yesterday. There were no survivors.
A stewardess was among the 50 charred victims.
The plane, four-engined York on Military charter from a Scottish airline, was reported to have been on fire before it crashed soon after taking off from Luqa airport for London.
RAF officials at Nicosia confirmed that there were 44 airmen, including 16 corporals, as well as one soldier on board.
They said the York left Nicosia on Thursday night with freight but no passengers for the Suez Canal Zone. It went on to Malta with the servicemen onboard.
A goatherd who saw the plane plunge said “it had smoke coming from it and it turned over almost on to its back before hitting the ground.”
Fire trucks of the RAF, Royal Navy and the United States Navy worked by are lights.
Servicemen carried stretchers with some of the victims up a rocky path to lorries.
The crash is the worst British air disaster since 1950, when an Avro Tudor airliner crashed in South Wales, killing 80.