The UK air crash victims resting forever under a Spanish sky

When a package holiday jet crashed on a remote hillside 55 years ago today, the local authorities ordered all 105 passengers and crew to be buried at the scene. Movingly, the local mayor has now been awarded the British Empire Medal for keeping their memory alive

- Graham Keeley, Samantha Wostear

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 Arbúcies, a small town of about 6,400 inhabitants which is about an hour's drive north of Barcelona, 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 met by a horrific site-mangled bodies hung from the trees.

A horrifying 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 fish and chips at a restaurant the week before the doomed flight.

When the 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 all booked on package holidays to Barcelona.

Yvonne's younger sister Jean Stobart spoke to a local paper to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the crash in 2020. She explained how news travelled to their home town hours after the women were waved 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.

"Dad somehow obtained the phone number to ring for information. But as we had no phone, he had to go to a neighbour to theirs.