Barcelona – London-Gatwick

On August 19, 1959 at 05:10 PM, Barcelona – London-Gatwick experienced a crash involving Douglas C-47 Skytrain (DC-3), operated by Transair UK, with the event recorded near Mt Montseny Catalonia.

The flight was categorized as charter/taxi (non scheduled revenue flight) and the reported phase was flight at a mountains crash site.

32 people were known to be on board, 32 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 3, crew fatalities: 3, passengers on board: 29, passenger fatalities: 29, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. Nineteen minutes after it departed Barcelona Airport, while cruising at an altitude of 5,600 feet, the airplane entered clouds and struck the slope of Mt Montseny (1,712 meters high) located about 60 km northeast of Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The airplane was destroyed and all 32 occupants were killed, among them 28 British students and one teacher. At the time of the accident, the airplane deviated about 16 km from the prescribed departure route out from Barcelona, probably following a navigation error on part of the crew. The mountain was shrouded in clouds and the visibility was nil when the airplane impacted terrain.

Aircraft reference details include registration G-AMZD, MSN 16112/32860, year of manufacture 1945.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 41.7594°, 2.3952°.