Fairey Firefly A.S. Mk.5 WB336 of 719 Naval Air Squadron, Royal Navy, crashed on Beinn Uraraidh on the Isle of Islay while on a training flight from Eglinton on the 25th September 1951.

Both men, from the Royal Australian Navy, were in training with 737 Squadron at Prestwick but part of their combined training was detached to 719 Squadron at Eglinton in Northern Ireland.  On the day of the crash the two took off in Firefly WB336 for a "controlled anti-submarine patrol exercise", they were to take off and receive orders once airborne, they had been briefed with a safety height of 3000ft and were only to fly below that height should they encounter cloud and were ordered to remain below any cloud.  The weather was reported as being good that day, being mainly sunny with some scatter cumulus, especially around the Scottish islands.  Cloud was reported to be covering the hills on Islay during the morning of the 25th September 1951.

Their initial orders were to take departure from Portrush, near Coleraine, on a bearing of 024^o for 30 miles and commence a grid search.  These orders were acknowledged at 10:19 and the aircraft took up course for its patrol area (30 miles at 024T from Portrush would have taken the aircraft into the area around the Mull of Oa in the south of Islay). 

Further orders were transmitted to the aircraft at around 10:30 and were repeated numerous times until 11:00, none of these transmissions were acknowledged.  These were for the aircraft to abandon the grid search and adopt a sonobuoy dropping pattern.  At 11:10 the aircraft was declared missing as no contact of any kind had been made since 10:19 and a search by air and sea was started immediately.

A report of wreckage some 10 miles NW of Portrush was received from and RAF Lancaster at about 12:30 but this turned out to be unconnected and the search was switched the the Islay area after 14:15.  The wreck was spotted by an FAA Barracuda (one of the last Barracudas still in service at that point) at 15:40 on Beinn Uraraidh, it and later other aircraft circled the spot until a ground team arrived at nightfall (approx 19:20 BST).

The aircraft had broken up over a wide area along a roughly ESE to WNW line with wreckage being spread for about 1/3 of a mile.

The first major item in the wreckage trail (though last when walking to the site) is the aircraft's tail, as the next photo shows the very faded code letters for Eglinton can still be read.

Further along the wreckage are the smashed remains of the starboard wing.

The next item is one of the two undercarriage oleos.

Nearby the oleo is the aircraft's arrestor hook and three propeller blades, these are shown below.

Next along the trail is the near complete port wing.

Above the port wing is the propeller hub with part of the reduction gearing still attached, this view shows the Paps of Jura in the distance, scene of a Barracuda crash some 6 years earlier.

Below the prop hub, still travelling in the direction of flight, is where the fuselage burned out.

One of the last items in the wreckage trail is the supercharger from the Griffon 76 engine.

The final item in the wreckage trail is the aircraft Rolls Royce Griffon engine, the view shown above has the Kintyre peninsular and beyond the mountains of Arran.

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