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Grumman Tbf-1b Avenger: Burntisland Roads, Outer Forth Estuary

Aircraft (20th Century)

Site Name Grumman Tbf-1b Avenger: Burntisland Roads, Outer Forth Estuary

Classification Aircraft (20th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Jz163; Firth Of Forth

Canmore ID 298062

Site Number NT28SW 8039

NGR NT 211 837

NGR Description NT c. 211 837

Datum Datum not recorded

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/298062

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Fife
  • Parish Maritime - Fife
  • Former Region Fife
  • Former District Maritime
  • Former County Not Applicable

Archaeology Notes

NT28SW 8039 c. 211 837

N56 2.4 W3 16

NLO: Burntisland [name: NT 235 858].

(Classified as Grumman TBF1-B Avenger: date of loss cited as 17 December 1945). JZ163: this aircraft of 785 sqdn [FAA] ditched: was at Crail.

Registration: British.

(Location of loss cited as N56 10.0 W2 40.0).

I G Whittaker 1998.

[No accurate location cited]. Remote (accoustic) sensing and diving by the [former] Archaeological Diving Unit recorded the remains of an aircraft to the SW of the entrance to Burntisland Harbour and 1100m West of the Designated remains NT28SW 8008]. It was tentatively equated with the recorded loss JZ163 [previously cited by Whittaker] which ditched following engine failure on 17 December 1945, whilst on a test flight. The pilot (and sole occupant) was Lt RE Patterson RNVR, who survived.

The aircraft was found substantially intact, resting on a featureless and relatively flat seabed of silt and broken shell matrix at a depth of about 12m [tide height not cited]. Fishing net is draped over the fuselage, having probably drifted onto it from elsewhere. The wreckage provides a habitat for a wide variety of life, including plumose anemones (on the propeller) and crabs.

The aircraft was found to remain almost upright, facing SW, and buried up to the midline of the fuselage. The attitude is slightly nose up, with a small list to starboard, and a low bank of sediment has built up across the axis of the fuselage. Most of the plexiglas canopy is missing from the turret, and only the more substantail spars survive of the tail assembly. The straboard wing was not seen (having presumably become buried), while the port wing was found folded back, most probably through the application of residual pressure in the hydraulic system.

The engine (Wright Cyclone) has acted as a large sacrificial anode, and almost completely corroded away, although the twin rows of the fourteen-cylinder radial remain discernible. The engine has fallen from its bearers to lie at an angle in front of the aircraft, while the state of the propeller indicates that the engine stopped before the aircraft ditched.

Artifacts have been removed from the aircraft. These are said to include a 0.5in calbre machine gun (from the turret) and a compass.

MS/5549 (ADU report 99/08: dived 10 May 1999).

The location assigned to this record is essentially tentative, being derived from the textual location that is cited in the ADU report. Crail airfield (NO60NW 49.00) is centred at NO 62327 08720 and Burntisland Harbour (NT28NW 30.00) is centred at NT 23020 85414.

The suggested equation of these remains with the recorded loss of JZ163 is accepted.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 16 March 2009.

Activities

Magnetometry (1 March 1999 - 30 June 1999)

Magnetometer, side-scan and metal locator surveys of area around Burntisland Designated Wreck site revealed remains of this WW2 aircraft, which lies over 1km west of the designated site. The craft was almost upright and 'buried at least up to the mid-line of the fuselage'. The engine was reported to have been almost entirely corroded. A diver from the Burntisland Heritage Trust recovered a machine gun and a compass from the cockpit; both items were declared to the RoW. Previous sonar surveys of the area had been carried out by the Archaeological Diving Unit (ADU). Neither the survey area not site location are given in the ADU report; and the latter is therefore derived from the RCAHMS record of the aircraft.

Information from Oasis (englishh1-94283) 26 March 2013

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