de Havilland Mosquito Mk.IV DZ486 of 618 Squadron, RAF, crashed on Cranstackie near Durness on the 5th April 1943 while on a bombing exercise from Skitten.

The aircraft is reported to have flown over Durness and Balnakeil before turning south and flying down the glen towards Cranstackie, however the distribution of wreckage at the site suggests that the aircraft flew over Loch Eriboll before clipping the ridge to the north of the summit and disintegrating down the north western face of the mountain.

The first piece of wreckage that spotted was the pilot's seat back armour, it appears to be wrapped around the up hill side of a boulder suggesting that this item was travelling downhill at high speed.

Spread over a wide area are items such as the ones shown above.

High up on the mountain are some items that show a fire occurred, these are ingots of aluminium melted by fire.

Lower down the wreckage trail is this fairly large collection of undercarriage and engine components, in the foreground is part of a supercharger housing.

further down the slope is the remains of an undercarriage oleo with the rubber damper blocks visible through the corroded steel casing.

The lowest item down the wreckage trail is the remains of the aircraft elevators, it once more complete in a previously published photo but appears to have broken in half since, also from that photo it appears as though the item has moved down hill by at least 100ft.

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