The tragic tale of Dan Air Comet crash: 105 British lives lost in Spanish mountains

It should have been a dream holiday in the Spanish sun for Yvonne Ridgley when she jetted off from Manchester to Barcelona on July 3, 1970, with her best friend Sandra Brown. Instead, it turned to tragedy when the Dan Air Comet they were travelling on crashed into a mountain in north eastern Spain.

All 105 passengers and crew of seven died instantly on the remote Montseny hillside near Arbucies, a small town well off the Costa Brava tourist trail.

After an extensive all-night search over a wide area, rescue teams reached the accident site the following day. They were greeted with a horrific site - mangled bodies hung from the trees. A desperately tragic end for the two childhood friends who had both worked through their annual leave, taking extra work as chambermaids to fund the trip - even peeling potatoes in return for a fish and chip supper at a local restaurant the week before the doomed flight.

When the jet plane went down it was the height of the summer, so Spanish authorities insisted on an immediate burial of the dead bodies for health reasons. All the British tourists and crew were buried in a makeshift mass grave in the town cemetery.

The victims, all from Burnley, Bolton and East Lancashire, were on package holidays to Barcelona when tragedy struck.

The younger sister of Yvonne spoke to a local paper to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the crash in 2020. She explained how news travelled to their home town just hours after waving them off. She said: "There was a lot of excitement as these two 17-year-old young ladies set off to the airport for their 4pm flight. Early the next morning, our next door neighbour came to tell us that she had heard on the radio that a plane flying to Spain had crashed.

"Dad somehow obtained the phone number to ring for information. But as we had no phone, he had to go to a neighbour to use theirs. Unfortunately, they confirmed Yvonne and Sandra were on the passenger list but at that time they did not know the extent of the crash and if there were any survivors, being told they thought the plane went down in the sea."

Despite the remoteness of the crash site, a local Spanish mayor has kept the memory of those who died alive over 55-years later with annual memorial services on the anniversary of the tragedy. Pere Garriga, Mayor of Arbucies, was awarded the British Empire Medal in April for his services to the memory of the victims of Dan Air Flight 1903.

Today, more than five decades after the tragedy as happens every year, another floral ceremony will be held in Arbucies to remember all those who perished. Relatives of the victims, including Yvonne's, were going to travel from Britain to Spain to mark the 50th anniversary but the pandemic prevented many from making the trip.

Speaking at the time Jean said: "On our previous visits this grave was always well tended.

"But on our visit for Yvonne's 60th birthday in 2012 it was unfortunately covered with ivy. I emailed the Spanish Embassy a few times for permission to clear it up. When we visited in 2017 it had all been cleared, the headstone cleaned, the names re-painted and a beautiful white dove made with stones had been installed."

The disaster remains the worst air crash involving Britons on the Spanish mainland. Ten years after the Arbucies crash, another Dan-Air aeroplane crashed in Tenerife on a flight from Manchester, killing 146 people.

Mr Garriga remembered how, as an eight-year-old boy, he lived through the horror of the accident in the town. "My memory is the pain of the local people and much silence in the town. Death hung in the air for quite some time after," he told The Daily Express.

"The lorries with the victims arrived at the main square. This sadness touched me profoundly as well as many others for a long time. People went voluntarily to the crash site, knowing that they were unlikely to find anyone alive, to try to find the remains of the victims.

Mr Garriga added: "This solidarity, this humanity moved me. Some did not eat meat for years, others never flew in aeroplanes. There were those who brought flowers to the tomb for years. Experiencing this tragedy when you are a child affects you very much. It stayed with me for a long time."

Mr Garriga, who has been mayor for 14 years, said the bodies of all the victims had to be buried in a mass grave for health reasons.

"Every year we mark the date with a floral memorial to those who died. There were families, with children. We always do it with relatives who come from Manchester," he said.

He said at one point, after DNA testing had advanced, it was suggested that the remains of the victims should be identified and reburied in Britain.

However, Mr Garriga said he was against this. "These people are our people. They should rest in peace alongside our relatives," he added.

The British Empire Medal was an honour for the entire town, he insisted, as everyone joined in the commemoration.

Sir Alex Ellis, the British Ambassador to Spain, said: "Pere has shown remarkable dedication in commemorating the British nationals who tragically lost their lives in the 1970 disaster. I am pleased that his efforts to ensure that the victims are remembered with dignity and respect are being honoured with a British Empire Medal."

Geoff Cowling, a retired British consul general in Barcelona, spoke to the diplomats who had attended the original crash site who related the horrific scene that greeted them.

"The Dan Air Comet ploughed into Montseny hills overlooking Arbucies in bad weather. It took [time] to cut a path through the thick forest to reach the wreckage in exceptional heat."

Mr Cowling attended an earlier ceremony for the victims in the Catalan town.

"In an emotional speech at the graveside on the anniversary of the disaster, Mr Garriga asked that their families in Manchester should know that the people of Arbucies had taken the victims to their hearts and would always care for them," he said.

"There can be nowhere else on Earth where there is a mass grave of British civilian air disaster victims. And certainly not cared for and honoured each year by the local community."

An investigation into the causes of the crash found a combination of errors caused the tragedy. These include mistakes in location reports from the Dan Air plane and a radar echo from another aircraft which was flying nearby.

This combination led to an involuntary error by Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Spain which could not be corrected by the time the air traffic controller realised that his instructions to the aircraft crew were given in response to a mutual misunderstanding. A navigational error on the part of the crew went unnoticed by the ATC.

Relatives of the victims of the plane crash are not expected to make the long journey from Britain to Arbucies, a town of about 6,400 inhabitants which is about an hour's drive north of Barcelona. During the pandemic families had called for a similar memorial to the 50th in Spain, to be held at Manchester Airport. But their wishes went unfulfilled and the families' tributes remain private.

"Fifty years ago on Friday, my mum's sister, my auntie, flew from Manchester headed for Barcelona," Amanda Stobart, Miss Ridgley's niece, told The Bury Times.

"Unfortunately, they were never to make their destination as their plane sadly crashed into a Spanish hillside while descending into Barcelona."