UK Plane (Ferrying Nukes?) Parts Found 59 Years Later Near Lake Van

türkçe  links to original Turkish article

(Vatan Newspaper, 29 August 2018)



        Ferrying nukes to Australia? (see below)

23 members of the Lake Van Activists Association, whose mission it is
to draw attention to the beauty of the lake and preserve it, climbed
nearby Mt. Süphan for the fourth time, the third highest mountain in
Turkey at 4,058 meters elevation. 

At the summit of Mt.Süphan, though, the team encountered a motor
and other parts of an English plane that crashed there on 23 April 1959.
At the time, all 14 crew members were killed.  Association President
Erdoğan Özel explained that "some parts of the plane were under the
glacier there.  When the glacial lake dried the motor parts became
visible."


Aircraft part visible at lower right.

The 4-engine Avro Super Trader IV-type plane was flying from London
to Bahrain when on 23 April 1959 it crashed on Mt. Süphan, in
Adilcevaz district of Bitlis province.  The plane had refueled in
Ankara and stories about its cargo circulated for years after the crash.
Because of bad weather, the wreckage was reached many days later.
None of the 14 crew members survived.


Mt. Süphan is in Bitlis's Adilcevaz district, on Lake Van's 
north shore.

//Ed. Note: herewith related info from the internet.//

G-AGRH Zephyr was an Avro Super Trader IV cargo 

aircraft, which crashed on Mount Süphan in eastern 

Turkey on 23 April 1959. The Super Trader IV was 

a modified Avro Tudor IV, which had been fitted with 

an aft cargo door and was flown unpressurized.

Loss

G-AGRH, owned by Air Charter Limited departed 

Ankara for a flight to Bahrain, which was a leg of a 

long cargo flight from United Kingdom to Woomera 

Airfield in Australia. The aircraft was carrying twelve

men and top-secret equipment for Woomera rocket 

range. Between Ankara and Teheran, it used an air 

corridor, which would take it over the middle of Lake

Van, Turkey's largest lake almost surrounded by 

mountains and situated close to the Soviet-Armenian 

border.[1]

At 08:14, the aircraft passed over Gemerek at FL115 

and Elazığ at 08:59 (at FL135). The last position report 

was received at 09:26 over Muş. The aircraft had crashed,

and was found six days later on Mount Süphan, a little 

north of Lake Van.

A special Royal Air Force mountain rescue team of six 

men from Nicosia, Cyprus reached the crash site at the 

top of the mountain some days later and demolished the 

plane wreckage with several explosives after retrieving 

several important documents.[2]

There was unproven speculation that there were nuclear 

warheads in the cargo. It was alleged by an anonymous source that

some years later, some local villagers who went to the wreck were

diagnosed with cancer and died due to high exposure to the 

radioactive substances. It was concluded that the aircraft, which 

had  been flying on instruments, drifted north of its normal track 

because of strong winds and crashed into the mountain. 

Contributing factors were that the winds were stronger than forecast

 – an accurate bearing could not be obtained at Muş, and the wind 

forecast at Van had not been checked. Sub-normal temperatures 

would result in a high indicated altimeter reading and calculations 

on the flight and contacts with beacons were not coordinated and 

controlled.