Final Flight

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Story 1.

The peculiar death of Peter Gibbs.

In December of 1975, a light aircraft took off from a hotel in the west of Scotland on a recreational flight.

It did not return, and when evidence was eventually uncovered about the loss of both the plane and its pilot, there were more questions than answers.

This week, we try to unravel the complexities surrounding the peculiar death of Peter Gibbs.

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Between 1944 and 1945, pilots of the Royal Air Force's 41 Squadron participated in some of the most dangerous aerial engagements of World War II.

Equipped with the most recently upgraded model of the Supermarine Spitfire, the British aviators were involved in a series of high-profile missions against German targets, repeatedly putting their lives on the line in the hopes of bringing an end to the conflict.

Having spent a lengthy period of time acting as escort fighters for the waves of American bombers which were laying waste to the urban and industrial targets in the heart of the Reich, 41 Squadron were temporarily transferred to cover the Allied landings on D-Day before being urgently tasked with defending London from Hitler's new V-1 flying bombs.

They would see out the war having participated in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, before conducting ground attacks in support of the invasion of Germany.

Amongst their number throughout this tempestuous period was a 24-year-old pilot named Peter Gibbs.

Like many of his comrades, he was released from service with the RAF at the end of hostilities, but this did not prevent him from pursuing his dreams.

In due course, he went on to obtain his private pilot's licence and would spend the next 20 years taking to the skies as a member of the Surrey Flying Club.

As well as his passion for aviation, Gibbs was also a keen musician and was sufficiently skilled to earn membership of the London Symphony Orchestra for a time.

But alongside his musical talents, it became clear that the former airman's wartime exploits had left him with something of a reckless and confrontational streak.

During the orchestra's tour of the United States in 1956, he was involved in a very public altercation with its conductor.

Following a performance in Boston, Herbert von Karayan had chosen to depart from the stage without waiting for applause or performing an encore.

His actions were perceived as both rude and insulting to the performers, and when he arrived for rehearsal the next day, Gibbs immediately drew a halt to proceedings.

He demanded an apology from von Karayan, adding, I did not spend four years of my life fighting bastards like you to be insulted before our own allies, as you did last evening.

Whilst the conductor refused to be drawn into the confrontation, he immediately made it clear to the orchestra's managers that he would no longer perform whilst the former RAF pilot was a member.

The result was inevitable.

with Gibbs being asked to leave and the tour continuing without him.

In the aftermath of the incident, he would become the managing director of his own property company, but this stubborn side to his personality would eventually resurface, leading to the most tragic of outcomes.

In December 1975, Gibbs began a relationship with a 32-year-old university lecturer by the name of Felicity Granger.

He had been looking to purchase properties up in Scotland to add to his growing business portfolio, and so decided to mix business with pleasure and asked her to join him on a scouting trip to the region.

Granger had readily agreed, and on Saturday, the 20th of that month, the two arrived at the Glenforza Hotel on the Isle of Mull.

The presence of a private airstrip in the grounds of the resort was surely no small factor in Gibbs' selection of the hotel as his base of operations.

The 780-metre runway, which had been constructed there by the Royal Engineers in 1965, served a dual purpose.

As well as being the only fixed-wing evacuation facility serving the island, it also doubled up as a take-off and landing site for a Cessna F-150H, which belonged to the Glenforz's owner, David Howitt.

Within hours of his arrival, the charismatic Gibbs charmed Howitt with stories of his wartime career, persuading the hotel owner to permit him use of the aircraft over the weekend.

When Howitt Howitt asked Gibbs if he had brought his pilot's licence along with him on the trip, Gibbs made the excuse that he had left it behind in London.

It had, in fact, expired quite some time before their encounter.

Gibbs spent the following week using the aircraft to visit properties on the various islands located in the region.

On the evening of Wednesday, the 24th of December, He and Granger landed back at the Glenforzer, having returned from viewing a property on the Isle of Skye.

During the course of their evening meal, other guests at the hotel recalled seeing the couple drinking red wine, with Gibbs ordering several additional glasses of whiskey.

A short time later, Gibbs went across to the reception desk and asked to borrow a pair of high-powered torches.

When asked what they were needed for, The charismatic pilot told the clerk that he intended to take the Cessna up for a night flight.

When the staff member protested, Gibbs replied, I am not asking permission.

I just thought it was courtesy to let you know.

I don't want to fuss.

Through a combination of charm and passive bullying, Gibbs persuaded the man to hand over the torches, and then made his way outside.

As other guests began to congregate on the patio, wondering what was going on, He handed the torches to Granger and asked her to use them to guide him down when he returned.

He then kissed her goodbye before heading off down the runway towards the waiting aircraft.

Minutes later, the onlookers heard the aeroplane's engine roar into life before it took off, disappearing over the tree line that marked the end of the unlit airstrip.

As the sounds of the aircraft's engine faded away, Granger activated the two torches, shining the powerful beams up into the skies overhead.

The staff on duty inside the hotel also took the liberty of turning off the lights in the bar to help the guests get a better view of the Cessna as it came back into land.

Two minutes gradually turned into ten and then into a further twenty before Granger returned to the onlookers in a state of confusion.

As fears grew that Gibbs may have become lost and ditched in the sea, all the hotel's lights were turned back on.

and a number of guests set off in their cars to check the nearby coves and beaches.

After it became clear that there was no trace of Gibbs or the Cessna, the authorities were called.

Christmas Day dawned on the Isle of Mull with helicopters from both the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force combing the waters around the island in search of the missing aircraft.

As the day wore on, the weather conditions gradually deteriorated, with a heavy storm blanketing the region.

Eventually, having found no trace of any wreckage, the search was called off.

It would be another four long months before Gibbs was seen again.

In April of 1976, a local shepherd named Donald McKinnon was moving his herd through the hills, approximately a mile north of the Glenforzer Hotel.

Just up ahead, he could see a large larch tree which had apparently been toppled.

As he came closer, he realised that there was something protruding from between the broken branches.

It was the lifeless body of Peter Gibbs.

The pilot's remains were wedged so firmly in the midst of the fallen tree that the attending police officers were forced to cut away several branches before they could release it.

They were perplexed to find that it was in remarkably good condition, with few signs of decay and no obvious marks or injuries.

Even more confusing, the larch tree was within an area which had been searched repeatedly during the last few months.

Of the Cessna itself there was no sign, and another decade would pass before it too was finally located.

In September of 1986, a pair of divers found the aircraft sitting on the seabed, approximately half a mile off the coast of Oban.

It was badly damaged, having lost a wing and most of its landing gear.

with a large hole smashed in the windscreen.

Images of the wreckage taken by the Royal Navy in 2013 revealed that both cockpit doors were still locked and secured, only adding to the mystery of how Gibbs had come to be found outside the aircraft.

Analysis of the remains of Peter Gibbs did little to assist the official investigation into the incident.

His body was found facing in the direction of the Glenforzer, indicating he had perhaps been travelling downhill at the time he had passed away.

Other than a small cut to his leg, there were no significant injuries, and there was an inexplicable lack of animal predation.

Forensic tests showed no sign of the salt and marine organisms that would be expected from a cadaver which had been immersed in seawater, with the pathologist deciding to cite exposure as the most likely cause of death.

With the evidence indicating that he had not ditched in the water and then swum back to shore, it was suggested that Gibbs may have bailed out over dry land, and then passed away whilst making his way back to the hotel on foot.

But the fact that the area had been repeatedly searched by the authorities and was situated on the daily routes of local farmers and shepherds raised the issue of why he had not been found during the four months that had elapsed since his disappearance.

He was not wearing a parachute when he was found.

and none have ever been located anywhere on the island in the years since the incident.

The fact that the Cessna doors were subsequently found to be locked and secured also seems to detract from the idea that he had bailed out.

The damage to the windscreen was almost certainly caused when the plane had impacted the water, so just how did he manage to exit the aircraft?

The Cessna's final resting place only serves to add more confusion to the mystery, as Oban lies roughly 21 miles to the east of the Glenforzer Hotel.

How had the doomed aircraft continued to fly for such a distance if Gibbs had been absent from the controls?

And if he had been inside at the point of impact, why would he swim all the way back to the Isle of Mull instead of the mainland, which was much closer?

And if that was the case, why was there no trace of marine biology on his body or clothing?

Some commentators believe that the case is remarkably similar to the disappearance of Frederick Valentich off the coast of Melbourne in October of 1978.

The Australian pilot was also flying a Cessna aircraft during during a night-time training flight and reported being pursued by an unidentified flying object.

Radio operators then heard a mysterious metallic scraping sound before his transmission went dead.

Neither he nor his aircraft were ever seen again.

Some believe that Gibbs was targeted by extraterrestrial visitors, who encountered him flying in the skies above western Scotland.

and then somehow removed him from the aircraft.

It is assumed that they then unceremoniously deposited his body back on the ground four months later.

In reality, however, there are probably far more rational explanations.

Fred Valentich was inexperienced and unqualified to be flying at the time of his disappearance, and despite his reports of a UFO in the vicinity, it has always been suggested that he in fact became disorientated and crashed.

Similarly, Gibbs had lied about his qualifications and was intoxicated at the time of his disappearance, increasing the likelihood that it was his own actions that caused his death.

Another proposal which has been suggested is that he was the victim of foul play.

Some witnesses on the evening reported having seen two sets of torches being used on the runway, rather than just the pair being held by Granger.

Is it possible that Gibbs was murdered on the ground before he even managed to get into the Cessna?

Whilst not impossible, this explanation would require multiple offenders, someone to remove and deposit the body, and another to then fly and ditch the aircraft.

Some believe that Gibbs' killer, or killers, may have already been concealed inside the Cessna itself.

At some point during the flight, this assailant either murdered him or forced him out of the plane.

before ditching the Cessna and swimming to the coast in order to escape.

Again these arguments are possible, but hinge on the murderer surviving the crash and then smashing his way out of the sinking aircraft rather than via the cockpit doors, and it doesn't take into account the freezing cold waters.

In truth, there is no comfortable or fully convincing explanation for how Peter Gibbs came to die, but the reality is that no other party was considered during the investigation, terrestrial or otherwise.

Felicity Granger told the police that before he had taken off, he had assured her that in the event of an emergency, he would ditch the aircraft and make his way back to her.

And in all likelihood, that is exactly what he did.

With limited visibility, and under the influence of the alcohol he had consumed during his evening meal, it would have been difficult for the pilot to know exactly where he was.

or to distinguish between the land and the sea.

Having set the controls of the Cessna to continue on its way, it is possible that he flew low to the ground, bailing out over what he believed to be water, only to discover that he was still over dry land.

Any parachute he had been wearing may have been discarded when he landed and blown off into the sea, but most likely he had not been wearing one, and in a twist of fate, the provider of his salvation might also have been the mechanism of his demise.

The larch tree that cushioned his fall may have saved him from a sudden and horrific death, but simultaneously trapped him inside it.

Hidden from view, he had died from exposure, only to be found when the tree collapsed several months later.

With the controls somehow set and locked in place, the Cessna continued on the course that had been set, eventually crashing into the sea.

In regard to the doors being locked, this could have happened when they slammed shut behind Gibbs as he left the cockpit.

Or Or perhaps this aspect is nothing more than spurious information, added to sensationalise the story as it has been retold through the years.

Whilst this theory manages to explain away most of the complexities in the death of Peter Gibbs, it is by no means watertight and hinges on a series of unlikely factors.

Perhaps it is completely wrong.

and the strong-willed businessman was indeed the victim of foul play.

Without further analysis of the plane that sits on the seabed off the Scottish coast, or a closer inspection of the post-mortem report, the answer to the Great Mole air mystery will continue to elude us.

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Story 2.

The plane in the forest.

This week on bedtime stories, we will be returning to Soviet-era Russia in order to delve deeper into a story originally referenced during a previous episode, that of a Cold War incident which allegedly resulted in the loss of a number of Soviet soldiers, a mystery known in smaller circles simply as the plane in the forest.

As the transport laboured its way through the cloudy skies, the young lieutenant surveyed the features of the men seated around him in the cramped cabin of the aircraft.

For all their training and varied experience from previous missions, here and there he could still detect faint traces of apprehension.

Given the circumstances surrounding the orders they had been given that morning by the base commander, this was perhaps unsurprising.

Several days prior, a reconnaissance flight flight passing the Putarana Plateau had reported sighting a lone plane, sitting on the ground in the middle of a wooded area.

Upon their return to base, the flight's pilots had duly filed their report, which in due course had been matched to an internal bulletin relating to a missing military aircraft.

The lieutenant and his team had been ordered to conduct a search of the area, which was situated not far from the slopes of Mount Carmen.

The paratroopers knew that the vast distance which lay between the crash site and their airbase represented the extreme operating range of the helicopter transporting them.

There was little room for error within the mission parameters they had been given.

If anything was to go wrong, they could well end up as isolated as the very target they had been ordered to investigate.

And if he was honest, their commanding officer was equally as troubled by the same questions which preyed on the minds of each member of the patrol.

What was a military plane doing out in the middle of nowhere, far beyond the distance it should have been able to fly, having made an apparently impossible landing in the middle of a heavily wooded forest?

And perhaps more importantly,

what fate had befallen the men who had been inside it.

In past episodes, we have examined various incidents in which ships and aircraft have vanished altogether in remote areas such as the Bermuda Triangle and the Great Lakes.

These have included the unsolved disappearances of Flight 19 as well as the loss of the French minesweepers Incomen and Serisoles.

In other instalments, We have also explored instances in which planes and vessels have been discovered with their entire crews slain under somewhat inexplicable circumstances.

The most famous example of this would be the discovery of the Orang Medan, a ship found floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with all souls aboard exhibiting signs which suggested they had been scared to death.

Another such story was recounted during our Enemy Unknown episode, relating to the mysterious loss of an American B-52 and her crew at the height of the Vietnam War.

War.

On that occasion, a US Special Forces team was dispatched to a remote area of the conflict following the discovery of the aircraft which had apparently been brought down there.

When they arrived, they found the entire crew dead, having been dispatched in a brutal and unknown fashion.

More perplexing was the fact that the gigantic plane was sitting perfectly upright, in between the tightly packed trees of a a forest, with no explanation as to how it came to rest there.

There was no damage to its fuselage or landing gear, or any of the trees which were still standing around it.

It was as though the huge plane had been vertically lowered to the ground by an unknown force.

During our retelling of this mystery, we went on to draw parallels with a similar report alleged to have taken place in Russia during the Cold War, in which a transport plane had been located in mysterious circumstances.

We had nothing much to go on with regards to the details, but in the aftermath of that episode, we were later contacted by a subscriber from Russia, who stated that they had heard about the incident in question when they were younger.

They explained that it's a popular story amongst members of their armed forces, having been passed down between those who served in the Siberian region and their their wider families.

We have since received emails from another subscriber who now resides in the United States, but whose family was originally from Russia, confirming the details of the tale.

It's a mystery which remains unanswered to this day, having played out in one of the most remote and inhospitable corners of the Soviet Union.

The story goes that during the summer of 1961, a paratroop officer based at Valak Airfield was unexpectedly summoned to see the base commander.

He was given orders to select a team of his men who would then be flown out to a far-flung region of the Siberian landscape on a search and rescue mission.

Whilst en route to the location, as he had briefed his squad, The young officer had been perplexed at how any aircraft could have ended up in such an isolated area, well away from established flight paths.

Several hours later, he and his team had been deposited on open ground, adjacent to an area of dense woodland, their pilots informing them that this was as close to their destination as they could safely land.

It would take a further hour of meandering between varying densities of sprawling pines and spruces before they would finally reach their objective.

There had been no small degree of commotion as the lead paratrooper had nearly collided with the metal fuselage, which seemed to have materialised out of nowhere.

As his men instinctively formed a perimeter around the small transport aircraft, the lieutenant was far from oblivious to the quizzical expressions they were now exhibiting.

The plane before them was an Antonov A2.

a small prop-driven transport which was capable of carrying up to 12 passengers.

It was painted in military colours and was sat upright on the forest floor, perfectly intact as though patiently waiting to commence the return journey back to its base.

There were no signs of impact damage to its fixed landing gear or propeller, with the trees and ground around it perfectly undisturbed, seeming to negate the possibility of a crash landing.

Motioning for one of the NCOs to join him, the lieutenant moved tentatively towards the plane, struggling to come to terms with what they had discovered.

At both the front and rear of the Antonov, there were dense bushes and thick tree trunks, obstacles which precluded the possibility of it landing where it was now sitting, or of it being taxied into the forest.

Ducking under the wings and trying the external door, the pair discovered that it was locked.

With the help of two other men, it would take several minutes for them to successfully force entry.

Cautiously filtering into the main cabin, they found there was nobody aboard and no signs that anything untoward had taken place.

In the cockpit, the controls were set as if the plane was still in flight.

as opposed to preparing to land.

It was also discovered that none of the plane's electrical systems were working.

The safety harnesses for both pilots were still securely fastened, despite the fact that their seats were now empty, and there was a half-full cup of coffee perched in one corner of the cockpit.

Lying at the base of most of the seats in the main cabin were weapons, packs, and webbing.

identical in nature to the ones that he and his fellow paratroopers were wearing.

Conscious that the longer they remained there, the more his men would be affected by the mysterious and haunting nature of their discovery, the officer had ordered that all logbooks and papers be recovered.

He then took several photographs of both the interior and exterior of the plane, before ordering his men to form up and commence the long walk back to their transport.

Upon their return to Valak Airfield, once his report had been handed in, the lieutenant was ordered not to discuss the mission with anyone else, and to ensure that his men were given the same orders.

But given the nature of military culture, the story would inevitably find its way out into the wider Soviet forces, prompting difficult questions, for which there were no easy answers.

It is rumoured that during their return flight back to base, the paratroopers took the liberty of reading the papers papers they had recovered from the Antonov prior to handing them in to their superiors.

The copy of the flight manifest recovered from the cockpit revealed that the transport had set off from Vorkuta-Sivietsky Air Base several months prior for a short run into a neighbouring airfield.

Upon reading this, the soldiers had become increasingly unnerved.

The base in question was used for the deployment of tactical bombers, situated just outside the city of Vrkuta.

And yet, the missing transport plane had been found over 12,000 kilometers from both its takeoff point and official destination.

Not only was this well outside of its maximum operating range, meaning that it would not be able to survive any return journey due to a lack of fuel, but it was also situated nowhere near any other Soviet military facility.

In simple terms, the plane should not have been able to get as far as it had and would have stood no hope of being able to land anywhere safely.

In addition to this, the document made no reference to the flight having contained any passengers, raising awkward questions as to why equipment and weaponry typical of a paratrooper detachment had been found aboard it.

The manner in which the Antonov had been discovered also made little sense,

resting perfectly intact on the ground, as if it had descended vertically from the sky above.

There was no sign that there had been any disturbance or struggle aboard it, with safety belts engaged and equipment resting close to hand in readiness if it was required.

It almost seemed to the rescue team as if some mysterious force had somehow removed the crew and passengers from the aircraft in mid-flight, before gently lowering it to the ground.

In the decades that followed, members of the team would make a number of discreet inquiries into the matter, usually when they encountered other soldiers who had served at the Verkuta airbase.

But such discussions would only ever elicit two forms of reply,

that the servicemen they were talking to had no knowledge of the matter, or they were politely informed that they were asking dangerous questions.

As a result, only whispers of what transpired were heard outside of Russia.

In the years since, the story has been disseminated to small Russian communities outside of the military, and a number of theories have been put forward as to what might have transpired.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, The one seized upon by those who have chosen to discuss the matter in a public forum is that the crew was subject to an alien abduction.

Supporters of this theory speculate that the Antonov was taken under extraterrestrial control, the plane's crew and passengers being removed mid-flight before it was then deposited in a far-off location by their abductors.

It is argued that this is why the missing men had not had time to remove their safety harnesses.

apparently disappearing from inside a locked and secure cabin.

It also might explain how the incident had clearly occurred whilst the aircraft was in mid-flight, but was then safely lowered to the ground amidst a packed forest, sustaining no apparent damage.

Reports of incidents in which vehicles and their crews appear to have suffered a rapid and inexplicable misfortune are to be found elsewhere across the globe.

In 1917,

the three-masted schooner Zabrina was discovered adrift off the coast of France.

Her hull was still packed full of the valuable coal she had been tasked to deliver, but there wasn't a soul aboard.

The galley table had been laid out ready for breakfast, and the ship's logbook and papers were lying open on the captain's desk.

But of her 23-man crew, there was no sign.

In October of 1955, a merchant vessel named the MV Joyita was found in the South Pacific, with all 25 of her crew and passengers missing, despite the ship's cork reinforcement rendering her unsinkable.

Other commentators have shied away from the idea of extraterrestrial involvement, citing the secretive and unaccountable attitude of the Soviet military towards weapons development.

They believe this incident may be yet another example of Soviet armed forces conducting illicit experiments, with little regard for the safety of the soldiers involved in such projects.

There is strong evidence that outside of the official narrative regarding the Soviet space program,

numerous astronauts were successfully launched into orbit, only to die during their mission, their bodies still drifting lifelessly through space.

The secrecy surrounding the incidents which would take place at Dyatlov Pass have also been attributed to military experiments, as well as more disturbing stories such as the infamous Soviet sleep experiment.

Despite the latter being widely cited as a creepy pasta, it is not beyond all possibility that there is a kernel of truth to it.

Is it possible that the Antonov may have been carrying a technology which resulted in the loss of its occupants, or that it was subject to some form of portal or projected field, which resulted in the disappearance of its crew?

There is of course a far more rational explanation for what took place, and this is that the incident is merely the military equivalent of an urban legend.

It may well be that a search and rescue team was indeed dispatched to Mount Carmen and did locate a downed aircraft there, one which had no valid reason to be where it was found, with the crew no longer present.

The AN-2 remains one of Russia's most mass-produced aircraft, largely due to the impressive technical capabilities it possessed for its time.

It had no apparent stall speed, meaning that in some circumstances, the pilot may have been able to idle and glide much further than its operational range.

It was also capable of taking off and landing over very short distances, meaning that a talented operator could well have crash-landed it in woods, resulting in minimal damage.

Stranded in the middle of nowhere and with little hope of rescue, it isn't unreasonable to imagine that the plane's occupants might have set off into the Siberian tundra, perhaps never to be seen again.

Elements of the story, such as the plane being impossibly sandwiched between trees, the crew's safety harnesses being engaged, and the controls being rigged for flight rather than landing may well have been embellishments added over the years in order to add more intrigue.

With the passage of time, details of the more clandestine events during the Cold War continue to slowly filter into the public domain.

It is hoped that one day, answers to questions such as the fate of the Idzel woman and the death of Commander Lionel Crabb may yet become clear,

and along with them, the truth surrounding the loss of an Antonov transport plane amidst the wild and untamed Siberian landscape.

Bedtime's glorious