Survivor visits Dakota crash site

THE last survivor . . . Professor Stephen Evans

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THE only living survivor of a devastating plane crash which has been linked to the mystery man who died on Saddleworth Moor has made a pilgrimage to the mist-shrouded crash site.

Professor Stephen Evans was just five years old when the BEA Dakota DC-3 ploughed into Indians Head at Dovestone, Greenfield.

His brother Roger, aged two, was one of 24 passengers who died after the flight from Belfast to Manchester collided with the famous local landmark on August 19, 1949.

Prof Evans (72), the last of eight survivors from the 1949 crash, was rescued from the wreckage by heroic volunteers who formed a human chain to save the injured and retrieve the bodies.

And after returning to the site for the first time since his childhood, he told The Chronicle: "I was pleased to have visited.

"My overwhelming sense was of deep gratitude to those who had selflessly gone to help.

"The local mountain rescue team were helpful on Saturday when I came back.

"I think it is good to realise, in a world where bad things easily hit the headiness, that there are many who risk their own lives for others."

He went on: "My sense of gratitude as I looked down from Indians Head rocks is of what it would have taken to rescue us.

"In some ways it was good the weather was so bad on Saturday with cloud covering the hills for much of the time to get a sense of what it must have been like in 1949.

"The perspective I had from the top seemed to be combined with a sense of perspective looking back over nearly 70 years of much good that had come to use out of that tragedy.

Ordeal

"My parents' faith and trust in Jesus has continued to sustain me and my trust is echoed in our children as well. 'In all things, God works for good,'" he added.

He lives in Southampton and works part-time at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Recalling his ordeal, he said: "My recollection was there were two people who rescued me, but I've no real memory of them.

"They might have been scouts - I was made a honorary member of an Oldham Scout Group afterwards."

Meantime, Oldham CID seeking to identify a man found dead at Chew track in December are focussing inquiries in Pakistan.

The man, believed to be aged between 65-75, has been named Neil Dovestone by mortuary technicians.

One line of inquiry was that the might have had some sort of emotional or family link to the Dakota crash site.

He had taken poison after travelling by train to Manchester from Ealing and asking directions at The Clarence, Greenfield, "to the top of the mountains."

His body was found near Robbs Rocks and an examination revealed he had no means of identity other than three rail tickets including a month return to London and £130 in £10 notes.

Police inquiries, headed by Detective Sergeant John Coleman, are focussed on surgery on a broken femur carried out between 2000-2013.

The titanium plate was made by a Pakistani manufacturer and police are hoping inquiries across the county's hospitals may discover the surgeon who carried out the operation.