Comets and Livingstone Airport

From Great North Road

Here is an article that appeared in the May 2001 issue of The Lowdown, regarding Livingstone Airport and the Comet. Livingstone Airport, much talked about recently in the context of upgrading the facilities and resurfacing of the runway to facilitate large passenger jets, has come a long way from when it was built in the 1950’s as a stop off point for the London – Johannesburg mail planes. Have you ever landed at Livingstone Airport? If you have, you will assuredly remember the clock faces, both inside and outside the building and front and back, with no hands and you will certainly have wondered what happened to the hands.

Comet Livingstone 1952.

Comet Livingstone 1952.

On the 8th April 1954, a De Havilland Comet aircraft, registration G-ALYY, leased from BOAC to South African Airways was on its way from London to Johannesburg. After a fuel stop in Rome, the plane took off from Ciampino Airport bound for Cairo, but only thirty six minutes later, radio-contact was lost, in the area of Stromboli. The next morning remains were found in the sea, but, as in this area the sea was up to 1000 meters deep in some parts, no parts of the aircraft could be inspected. On board, were fourteen passengers and seven crew. Six of the passengers were destined for Livingstone.

On 10 January 1954, another De Havilland Comet, G-ALYP, had gone down, in a ball of flame, off the coast of Elba. This crash together with the crash of G-ALYY was enough for all Comet flights to be suspended. A long investigation took place, which included the assembly of the remains of the crashed G-ALYP and an underwater stress test of another Comet. During this stress test, the fuselage broke up on the edge of the forward escape hatch. This rupture was repaired, the tests restarted, but shortly afterwards the fuselage again broke up. This time the rupture started at the upper edge of a window and was three metres long. The De Havilland Comet, the world’s first commercial jet passenger aircraft, never regained its glory.

On board G-ALYY, together with other cargo, were the mechanisms and hands for the clocks at Livingstone Airport. No information has been found to establish why new mechanisms were not purchased. Perhaps it was an administrative oversight or perhaps these clocks were left without mechanisms in remembrance of those who died on the crash. Whatever the reason, the clock faces have given Livingstone Airport some of its character.

But now, after fifty years, somebody has tried to remove some of this character, by painting their advertisement in the centre of these clock faces! A blot on our landscape!

Contributed by Heather Chalcraft.

July 15, 2001