The Mull Air Mystery (Peter Gibbs; Vanished Aircraft)

[Anonymous]

Can anyone shed any light on this:

The Great Mull Air Mystery

From the May 1976 edition of Pilot magazine.

A Cessna 150 took off from the unlit grass airfield of Glenforsa to fly a single night circuit, but vanished totally after completing the downwind leg.

The mystery deepened later in 1976, when the body of the pilot , with no evidence of any physical injury, was discovered about half a mile away from the runway threshold.
____________________________

It's bothered me for years....

 

[rynner2]

I'd never heard of The Great Mull Air Mystery before, Forty2, so I tried Googling for it....


...and found just one page which repeats exactly what you wrote, no more, no less!

Which Mull? 'Isle of', or 'of Kintyre', or another one elsewhere? I can't find Glenforsa on the map either (in GB).

Edit: another search turns up a Hotel and airfield named Glenforsa, apparently on the Isle of Mull.

Another edit: A picture of Glenforsa! (Second picture down.)

The picture link is dead. Here's the photo cited:

​

Caption: An Airfield Challenge.
The screenshot on the left is a rather lovely photo of Glenforsa airfield on Mull, sent to me by accident. I'd happily credit the author if he writes to me again!
Mull in FS2002 is rather different and I'd classify it as a minor challenge if you are bored one evening.
Start at any nearby airfield (Islay, Tiree or Glasgow) and fly the short distance to Mull - then find the airfield! Don't start off at Mull as that rather defeats the point of the exercise.

SALVAGED FROM: https://web.archive.org/web/20030120062401/http://www.homepages.mcb.net/bones/04fs/fltsimch.htm

And a bit more searching reveals that hotel and airfield are near Salen, on the neck of land between the Sound of Mull and Loch Na Keal (a sea loch, in the background of the photo). To the NW (right) the Sound leads to Tobermory. I used to know this area very well from the water, having sailed past many times.

Another webpage calls it Tobermory Airport 'sometimes called Glenforsa'! (But mostly it does seem to be called Glenforsa.)

This Air Accident Report, although not directly related to the mystery, gives an idea of the problems involved in flying a light aircraft in this region.

The link to the illustrative Air Accident Report is dead. The report to which the link led can be accessed via the Wayback Machine at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030419003343/http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/bulletin/sep97/gmalk.htm

 

[FraterLibre]

Oopsie

It's possible the pilot of the Cessna fell out -- it happens, oddly enough -- and that the plane simply flew on its own far out to sea until it crashed. He may not have been high enough to have caused massive trauma when he fell -- spongey ground helps, too.

Who can say?

Of course, a UFO zapping his plane and vomiting up the dead pilot is just as reasonable. To some.

 

[TheQuixote]

Mystery plane found on sea bed

An investigation has been opened after three Royal Navy minesweepers found a mystery aircraft on the sea bed off the west coast near Oban.

The aircraft is believed to be a Cessna and it is thought it may be a plane which disappeared 28 years ago.

The pilot was found dead on land, but his aircraft was never found.

Underwater divers attempted to take video footage of the plane on Friday, but had to return to the surface because of poor underwater visibility.

The tale of the dead pilot is featured in a book titled Scottish Unsolved Mysteries, which describes how airman Peter Gibb was found but his aircraft never was.

Examine wreck

A spokesman for Clyde Coastguard said: "At first, the Royal Navy thought it could be another plane which vanished in the early 1980s.

"But the pictures seem to indicate it is a Cessna. Air authorities think it is one that fell into the sea 28 years ago."

An investigation into the mystery has now been reopened in an attempt to find out if the crashed plane is the one which disappeared.

In 1986 a diver searching for scallops reported finding the plane, which he said had lost both wings.

But the latest sighting - apparently at the same spot - is of a plane with one of its wings still attached.

Divers are expected to make further attempts to examine the wreck at a later date.


"Further investigations are being hampered by the weather, we have a major Arctic depression there at the moment"
Neil Smith
Royal Navy


A spokesman for the Royal Navy in Scotland said the plane was found on Thursday evening by three of its vessels from HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane.

The ships from 3rd Mine Countermeasure Squadron, which was active in the port of Umm Qasr during the recent Gulf conflict, were on an operation to update coastal mapping.

The 300-tonne vessels, HMS Pembroke, HMS Penzance and HMS Inverness, were around a mile off the coast of Oban when they made the find.

The 52-metre HMS Pembroke discovered the plane in 28 to 31 metres of water during the month-long training operation.

Neil Smith, director of communications for the Royal Navy in the north of Britain, said exploration of the sunken plane was being held back by the weather.

He added: "Further investigations are being hampered by the weather, we have a major Arctic depression there at the moment.

"Also we're not sure whether our divers, who are trained to go down to 30 metres, will be safe as parts of the plane are submerged at 31 metres.

"We think it could be a Cessna but we haven't confirmed that yet and we are in talks with the Air Accident Investigation Branch."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3467055.stm

 

[naitaka]

"The pilot was found dead on land..."

I love aviation mysteries, but I'm not familiar with this one. Do they mean his body washed ashore, or that he fell/jumped out of the plane while it was still over land?

 

[EnolaGaia]

...

This thread is the only (or at least the only surviving ) place where the Mull Air Mystery is mentioned.

Does anyone know whether a better / final explanation for what happened has been given in the decade-and-a-half since it was discussed here on FTMB?

 

[Coal]

Anyway ...

I got sidetracked onto the King Bird topic while searching for prior FTMB mentions of the Mull Air Mystery (see earlier posts in this thread). This thread is the only (or at least the only surviving ) place where the Mull Air Mystery is mentioned.

Does anyone know whether a better / final explanation for what happened has been given in the decade-and-a-half since it was discussed here on FTMB?

That's the first I've heard of this one. Fascinating.

First thought, was the hillside he was found on really searched as thoroughly as it is implied in reports? By who? How? A quick look for a broken plane is not the same as a careful foot-by-foot search for a much smaller flatter human body.

 

[EnolaGaia]

I haven't yet dug very far into the Mull Air Mystery, so I don't have even tentative answers to your questions.

My initial gut-level feeling was that Gibbs was intending to stage his own disappearance (and / or presumed death), and he may not have even been on the plane when it took off.

I've subsequently found this December 2016 Scottish Daily Mail article which insinuates the same sort of orientation to the mystery:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20161217/282102046316944

I'm particularly struck by the claim that the autopsy results supported the idea he'd been dead for 4 months outdoors, even though the body was in remarkably 'good' condition. Unless I can find and accept the rationale for this opinion, I'm not buying it.

If anything, the most baffling thing about the Mull Air Mystery is how it got cited in this thread so long ago and never got mentioned again.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The Google Books presentation of A Touch of Treason - the memoirs of Ian Hamilton, from whom Gibbs had chartered the plane - offer a much less sensationalistic version of events.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...jAN#v=onepage&q="Glen Forsa" airfield&f=false

Hamilton's account:

- presumes Gibbs ditched close to shore, waded onshore, and got lost wandering about

- mentions there was in fact substantial deterioration to Gibbs' body when it was found ("... the weather and the carrion crows had done their business.")

- states Gibbs' body was found "... sitting propped in the fork of a fallen larch tree." (Other accounts that bother to mention the body's location state he was apparently draped over a tree trunk.)

- mentions the plane's landing lights were last seen approaching the airstrip from the east (whereas most accounts claim or insinuate the plane had taken off and went out of sight never to be seen again, with no mention of an apparent approach).

- sums up the incident as "... a flight of the most utter foolhardiness."

This last point is understandable, given that Gibbs undertook the flight on a cold rainy night, and most accounts mention it was sleeting heavily only minutes after take-off when his lady friend began to suspect something was wrong.

 

[EnolaGaia]

"The pilot was found dead on land..."

I love aviation mysteries, but I'm not familiar with this one. Do they mean his body washed ashore, or that he fell/jumped out of the plane while it was still over land?

This incident is more commonly cited as the Mull Air Mystery, as discussed in the Vanishing Aircraft thread:

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/vanishing-aircraft.479/

Postings regarding the Mull Air Mystery have now been consolidated in this thread.
- EnolaGaia, September 2018

 

[EnolaGaia]

... I've subsequently found this December 2016 Scottish Daily Mail article which insinuates the same sort of orientation to the mystery:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20161217/282102046316944
...

Odd as it sounds, I've now found an update that predates this article ...

As noted in this long-forgotten FTMB thread:

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/scottish-unsolved-mystery-plane-found.13349/

All Mull Air Mystery posts are now consolidated within this thread.

... a Cessna believed to be the one from the Mull Air Mystery was discovered on the sea bed "off the west coast near Oban" in February 2004.

Here's the BBC News report on the discovery:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3467055.stm

 

[Waymarker]

"The pilot was found dead on land..."
I love aviation mysteries, but I'm not familiar with this one. Do they mean his body washed ashore, or that he fell/jumped out of the plane while it was still over land?

Here's a report on the incident below, he took off at night in his Cessna then bad weather clamped down and he vanished.
His body was found 4 months later on land nearby, and the plane was found on the seabed 10 years later a mile from the runway.
It's assumed he got out of the plane (after presumably ditching it with engine failure) and swam ashore, only to die of exposure.
The only minor mysteries seem to be that-
1- forensics found no seawater in his clothes, but rain could have washed it out.
2- To get to the spot where he collapsed and died on a hillside, he'd have had to cross a road, so the mystery there is why he didn't stay on the road? But if he was hypothermic his state of mind would have been confused.

https://fearoflanding.com/accidents/the-mysterious-disappearance-at-mull/

PS- Personally I find the biggest mystery to be why, after a good hotel dinner, he decided to take off into the cold night instead of staying in the warm cosy hotel in the arms of his warm cosy girlfriend!

 

[Ermintruder]

A fascinating case. Curiously, not one I had heard about before (despite having visited Oban and Mull a few times over the years).

It's worth noting that the submitted responses to the main article are outstandingly-relevant, made by people with (apparently) precisely the right qualications, personal experience and analytical ability. The contributors are so level-headed, and well-informed, the value they add to potential interpretations of the incident is significant....(and let's presume that they are genuine, and not disinformation sources: at least for now)

 

[Spookdaddy]

Steve Punt's radio programme about the case is still available online: The Great Mull Air Mystery.

For anyone not familiar with Punt PI, don't be put off by the spoofed up way the programmes are introduced - they are very much worth listening to. Punt is a genial presenter who mixes healthy scepticism with a big dose of still willing to be mystified - and clearly has great enthusiasm for his subject matter. They aren't at all exhaustive (the half hour format wouldn't allow that) - but there are interviews and some original research; they aren't just rehashes.

Quite a few episodes available to listen to - and I'd recommend them all. Never heard a boring one.

 

[escargot]

Steve Punt's radio programme about the case is still available online: The Great Mull Air Mystery.

For anyone not familiar with Punt PI, don't be put off by the spoofed up way the programmes are introduced - they are very much worth listening to. Punt is a genial presenter who mixes healthy scepticism with a big dose of still willing to be mystified - and clearly has great enthusiasm for his subject matter. They aren't at all exhaustive (the half hour format wouldn't allow that) - but there are interviews and some original research; they aren't just rehashes.

Quite a few episodes available to listen to - and I'd recommend them all. Never heard a boring one.

One of my favourites too. I wish he'd do more, maybe in a more exhaustive/longer format.

The one about the train crash is truly insightful. Eyewitnesses misinterpreted what they saw and an urban legend grew up around what they reported, but the truth was horrific in a different way.

WELL worth a listen, and you'll get no spoilers from me!

 

[CALGACUS03]

A further piece of info; the plane was actually on loan from Ian Hamilton QC, who had, in 1950, as a student at Glasgow University, 'liberated' the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey.

 

[Peripart]

Also covers... the Mull aircrash mystery...

That intrigued me enough to look it up - what a strange story! It sounds likely that the plane has now been found, even if no-one has taken the trouble to conclusively prove it. But still, how does the pilot end up on a fallen tree, and the plane at the bottom of the sea?

My favourite part of the story, though, was the background tale of Gibbs (the pilot) giving Herbert Von Karajan what for, and getting sacked from the orchestra for his audacity!

 

[escargot]

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Steve Punt's investigation of this mystery is still available on BBC Sounds and includes the snippet that the Room 14 Gibbs stayed in was so haunted that a persist was called in:

The Great Mull Air Mystery​

On Christmas Eve 1975, former Spitfire pilot Peter Gibbs took off from the unlit airfield on the Isle of Mull and never returned.

It was a moonless night and having just finished dinner with his girlfriend at the Glenforsa Hotel, it seemed a bizarre and impetuous act.

Then Gibbs’ body was discovered on a hillside, but the plane was nowhere to be seen and the story began to get stranger.

Punt heads to the Mull to investigate, but with every piece of evidence the mystery deepens.

Was Gibbs attempting an illicit flight to Northern Ireland, was he trying to fake his own death, or was it something in creepy Room 14 that was to blame?

As he tries to disentangle myth from reality, Punt hears fishy tales from a suspicious local diver, unearths the original pathologist and scrutinises the man who watched Gibbs vanish into the night.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b066fqcr

 

[Fabio Picasso]

Mull's Great Air Mystery Endures

Source: Mull's Great Air Mystery Endures, The Glasgow Herald (Glasgow, Scotland) , Vol.CCIV. Nº21, February 19, 1986, p.11·

 

[Fabio Picasso]

Interpretation of the gravity and magnetic anomalies over the Mull Tertiary intrusive complex, NW Scotland.
Abstract:
A 50 mGal local positive gravity anomaly over the Mull intrusive complex is interpreted as caused by an underlying dense body of mafic (basic and/or ultrabasic) rocks extending to a depth of between 6.5 and 13 km and occupying a volume of between 2000 and 3600 km3, depending on density contrast. The granites produce smaller superimposed negative gravity anomalies, which indicate that the granites of the late Loch BA centre extend to a depth of about 2 km and those of the early Glen More centre occupy a significantly smaller volume. The granites occupy between 5 and 9% of the total volume, consistent with a derivative origin. The complicated aeromagnetic anomalies have been simplified by applying the pseudogravimetric transformation. The most conspicuous positive pseudogravimetric anomaly occurs over the rocks of centres 1 and 2. This is of much smaller area1 extent than the positive gravity anomaly, and it is attributed to highly magnetic rocks extending to a depth of about 2 km beneath centres 1 and 2, including cone sheets. The magnetization of the deeper parts of the complex is much weaker and has not been resolved. A partial ring of linear or arcuate negative magnetic anomalies occurs along the SE, S and W margins of the deep-seated intrusive complex and may mark an unexposed early ring
dyke with strong reverse magnetization. It is estimated that up to a quarter of the volume occupied by the intrusive complex may have been provided by various types of forceful intrusion but that most of the upper crustal space has been made available by ring subsidence and other types of stoping. This is feasible because the magma was demonstrably lower in density than the Moine and Lewisian. The mantle-derived magma probably rose through the more ductile lower crust by diapirism, thereby causing a slight thickening of the underlying crust which may provide isostatic support for the excess mass of the intrusive complex and its associated topography

Source: MHP Bott, DA Tantrigoda . Interpretation of the gravity and magnetic anomalies over the Mull Tertiary intrusive complex, NW Scotland, Journal of the Geological Society February 01, 1987, Vol.144, 17-28.​