On a trip to Mull in 2008, I climbed to the summit of Ben More to look for the remains of a Bristol Beaufort that crashed in 1942. I was unable to find anything but have discovered subsequently that the wreckage lies slightly to the north of the summit, in the northern corrie of Ben More at OS grid. ref. NM 525335.

I climbed to the summit of Ben More near Crianlarich in May 2009 to look for any remains of either the Vickers Viscount that crashed on the mountain in 1973, or the Westland Wessex SAR helicopter that crashed near the summit during a rescue operation in the winter of 1987. I found some remains of the Viscount low down on the mountain (see my page about this site here) but could find no trace of the Wessex. The ACCS website says of the Wessex site on Ben More: 'Various wreckage parts remain onsite, including tail unit, hydraulic sections, landing gear, and rotor blades'. This may be a reference to photographs of the site taken in the aftermath of the crash, but does not appear to be true any more.

More information and photographs (including one showing the remains of the tail rotor asembly at the crash site) are on the ACSS website here.

Stuart Whittaker sent me a photograph of the scar left on the slopes of Ben More by the crash of the Wessex (see photo to the right). This photo was taken sometime in the summer of 1991, and it is possible that this scar is still visible on the mountain.

There is a memorial on the summit of Ben Ledi, about 20km to the south-east of Ben More, to a member of the Killin Mountain Rescue Team killed in the Wessex crash.

There is a news article on the BBC website about this crash here.

In July 2010 I visited the Cornalees Visitor Centre in Clyde Muirsheil Regional Park. There is a radial Cheetah engine in the car park of the visitors centre (see photos below) from an Avro Anson that crashed on the nearby Dunrod Hill in 1939. The other engine remains on the hill above the car park. The ACSS website has some information and photos of this site here.

I climbed to the summit of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean in Glen Carron in July 2010 to look for any wreckage from the wartime crash of a Whitley bomber in 1941 but only managed to find a small number of insignificant pieces in Coire an t-Seilich and on the north-western slopes of the summit (see photo to the left). I believe the majority of the wreckage was cleared in recent years. There is some information about the crash and the site on the PDAAR website here, and the WYACU website here.

In March 2011 I found some wreckage on the steep slopes below Bishop Hill in the Lomond Hills in Fife, at OS grid. ref. NO 18108 04419. The wreckage is located in an anonymous and secretive gully surrounded by farmland to the west of Bishop Hill at an altitude of about 280m, and consists of a small pile of what looks like rusted metal spars (see photo to the left).

Personal correspondence from Dave Priestley claims that this is the remains of a de Havilland Vampire (VV636 from RAF Leuchars 229 OCU) that impacted near the Carlin Maggie rock formation below the summit of Bishop Hill on 02/02/51, although I have been unable to find out any further information about this - a list of Vampire crashes here does not seem to list this crash, although the aircraft is listed as crashing on Bishop Hill here.

However, personal correspondence from both Neil Daniel and Alan Thomson claim that this wreckage is in fact main wing spar parts from a Hawker Hind (K6819 of 603 Squadron) which crashed here on 18/02/39. Hawker manufacturer stamps found by Neil Daniel on the wreckage, and the fact that the wreckage does not seem to bear any similarities to the de Havilland Vampire wreckage in the Lammermuir Hills to the south of Edinburgh (see my page about this site here), would seem to support this.

Personal correspendence from both Stuart Whittaker and Dave Priestley has informed me of the crash of an RAF Hawker Hunter (WT721 of 764 Squadron) on Carn Liath (one of the summits that make up the Beinn a'Ghlo massif) on 22/9/1970. There are some reports that one of the wheels from the Hunter was visible on the hill at one time. Dave quotes a grid reference of NN 945695 for the location of this crash site in Coire na Saobhaidh but I have never encountered any wreckage parts despite several trips to the area. In June 2011 in this area of Beinn a'Ghlo I did however spot an unusual scar on the south-western slopes of the minor summit of Beinn Bheag (approximate grid ref. NN 947699) which may or may not be related to this crash (see photo to the right).

Also, one of the remote eastern corries of Beinn a'Ghlo above Loch Loch is apparently known locally as 'Aeroplane Corrie' due to a wartime crash in the vicinity. Personal correspondence from Alan Thomson informs me that this was the crash of a de Havilland Tiger Moth (T6577 from 11 EFTS) on 22/2/1945.

The site of the 1993 RAF Hercules crash is also near to Loch Loch to the east of Beinn a'Ghlo.

A few interesting wreck sites in the Scottish mountains have had large wreckage parts removed in recent years:

• The engines from a Vickers Wellington near the summit of Carn Aosda were recovered in 1999 - see my page about this site here.
• The remains of an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley on the summit of Carn a' Choire Mhòir in the hills north of the A9 Slochd summit were cleared away by the Midland Aircraft Recovery Group in 2003. The ACSS website has photos of the recovery operation here.
• The remains of an Avro Lancaster that crashed on Conic Hill to the east of Loch Lomond were cleared away in 2006, photographs of the recovery operation can be seen on the ACSS website here.
• The remains of an Avro Lancaster in a remote location in the Monadliath hills about 10km north of Kingussie were cleared by the RAF in 2008 and 2009. A BBC website news article about the recovery of one of the propellors in 2008 can be seen here. Photographs of the operation to recover the rest of the wreckage in 2009 can be seen here.
• Both jet engines from the Gloster Javelin in the Moorfoot Hills south of Edinburgh were removed from the site in 2009 - see my page about this site here (with photographs of the engines before they were removed).

Beyond Scotland - I climbed Snowdon in Wales in April 2010 via the Watkin Path on the south side of the mountain. This path goes through the Cwm Llan and not far from the path near the old workings of the Hafod y Llan mine at an altitude of 400m lie a small amount of remains of a Mosquito that crashed in the Cwm in 1948 (see photos below, OS grid. ref. SH 61099 52985). There are other small pieces of wreckage scattered in this area, there are some photographs of this wreckage on the 'GeoTopoi' blog here.