A
MYSTERY man who died on a lonely hillside may have been making a final
pilgrimage to the scene of a plane crash that killed his family, police
believe.
Baffled detectives have spent six weeks trying to identify the smartly-dressed
man who travelled more than 200 miles to remote Saddleworth Moor where his
body was found.
And they have been attempting to discover why he battled to that precise spot
alone in freezing rain.
Now cops think he may have a family connection to the August 1949 crash when a
British European Airways twin-engine Douglas Dakota ploughed into the
hillside.
Twenty-four people died, while eight passengers, including three children,
survived the doomed DC-3 flight from Belfast to Manchester.
Police are working on the theory the mystery man, wearing polished black
slip-on shoes, may have been related to a victim of the disaster.
Det Sgt John Coleman, of Oldham CID, said: “We have opened the files on the
crashed DC-3 and are examining the names of all those who survived and died.
“The unidentified man is of an age that ties in with the crash and could be
related to someone on it.
“He could have been making a pilgrimage to the plane crash site to remember a
relative or friend.
“At this stage, with no clue on the dead man’s body to his identity, nothing
can be ruled out.”
Police are trying to establish whether the man — thought to be between 65
and 75 — killed himself or whether he died in an accident or fall or from
natural causes.
CCTV showed him starting his trip from West London’s Ealing Broadway Tube
station on December 11. He travelled to Euston and took a train to
Manchester.
The next sighting came 15 miles away in the moorland village of Greenfield
where he asked a publican how to reach the top of a nearby hill known as
Indian’s Head.
His body, with no sign of injury, was found the following day. He had no
wallet, phone or other ID and was carrying £130 in £10 notes.
Police say his death is “unexplained”.
How 24 died on Saddleworth
TWENTY-four people died in 1949 as their DC-3 hit the mist-covered hill in
Saddleworth, 15 miles from touchdown at Manchester Airport.
The aircraft broke up and caught fire but eight passengers managed to scramble
clear.
Workers from a nearby paper mill formed a human chain to carry the injured to
safety.
Those killed included the plane’s pilot Capt Frank Wortley Pinkerton and two
flight crew.