Without wishing to add more to the potential listing types.  Would it be a good
idea to also have a list of the crew members?

"Newman, Martin" wrote:

> The Heritage Data Division at the National Monuments Record (NMR) are
> currently putting together a desk based recording exercise for historic
> aircraft crash sites. This will include both terrestrial and maritime crash
> sites. Recording will obviously have many similarities to maritime ship
> wreck recording but there are some crucial differences. Even before
> recording work has started investigations into this area have raised a
> number of recording issues that we would be pleased to receive comments on.
> These include:
>
> Type of Incident - A recording scheme similar to the maritime manner of loss
> is required, including terms such as crash, crash landing, forced landing,
> ditched. These  could be double indexed with terms relating to the cause of
> the accident for example, shot down, exploded ran out of fuel, weather, bird
> strike, mechanical failure. This could be a thesaurus where for example shot
> down would have narrow terms of shot down air to air, shot down ground to
> air and shot down in error. The last example having a non preferred term of
> friendly fire.
>
> Nationality - The current maritime list could be used with the addition of a
> few landlocked countries.
>
> Departure - The maritime list would not prove suitable as it will include
> places which do not have ports and more specific airport names could be
> included e.g. Biggin Hill. Should the names of aircraft carriers be recorded
> or their location at the time? This is not a hypothetical question as
> aircraft have crashed on English soil having flown from a carrier, for
> example the Skyraider which crashed on Banner Fell in 1953 had taken off
> from the USS Wasp.
>
> Destination - See above, should a plane on a bombing mission have its target
> as the destination or the airfield to which it was returning?
>
> Evidence - For the NMRs project this will be mainly documentary evidence,
> but where details are given other terms could be used such as circumstantial
> evidence, find and sub surface deposit (where remains have been buried). A
> new term to cover material on the ground e.g. wreckage is probably needed as
> maritime terms are not really appropriate.
>
> Cargo - This is possibly useful for civil planes, but it could be argued
> that bombs count as cargo. Would recording this be useful?
>
> Aircraft Type - A thesaurus of aircraft types is in development, so far this
> has been largely lead by the work of the Excavation Index after they have
> been notified of airplane digs.
>
> Other Identifiers - Should aircraft serial numbers be recorded in other
> identifiers or should they go into the text?
>
> Date- This will be date of the crash rather than date of manufacture, unless
> it was thought useful to have date of manufacture as well. In many cases
> date of manufacture wont be known exactly so only the dates between which
> that model was manufactured could be recorded which would not be
> particularly useful as a user could get the same result by searching on
> aircraft type.
>
> Materials and Construction - These will not be recorded as they are the same
> for all aircraft of a particular type.
>
> Height/Depth - Depth is obviously useful in the maritime record but height
> could also be useful for aircraft which flew into hillsides in upland areas.
> Some sources give this others give references such as crashed 200m north of
> the cairn in the summit of...
>
> Collisions - Where two aircraft collide should this be two records, one for
> each loss or one record for the incident including details of both planes?
> Bare in mind that the two aircraft may not come down on the same spot.
>
> Cross referencing - Where two planes collide and are recorded separately
> they could be cross referenced. Also an aircraft can be repaired after a
> crash only to be involved in another incident. Individual pilots can also be
> involved in more than one crash. Some sources provide this cross reference
> information. The records could also be cross referenced to memorials or to
> other sites they have crashed onto for example the Heinkel  111 which
> crashed onto the settlement site on Lundy.
>
> Permanently Mounted Aircraft - These are either memorials or gate guardians
> and included in some of the sources we are looking at. Should we record them
> as well and if so what of the above would be useful. Departure and
> destination for example probably wouldn't be as the last flight did not lead
> to its current location.
>
> Civil Aircraft - Should we record civil aircraft crash sites? These are not
> covered by the protection of Military Remains Act and so far little interest
> has been shown in this area compared to military aircraft.
>
> ------------------------------------------
> Martin Newman
> Heritage Data
> National Monuments Record
> English Heritage



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