…And local flying history!
Firstly, don’t forget that the highly popular Motril Air Show is this Sunday, the 21st on Playa Granada, starting at 11.30h.
But if you’re lost for something to do the day before, Saturday the 20th, then between 18.30h and 20.00h the pilots of the Spanish aerobatics display team, Patrulla Águila will be signing autographs in the hall of the Gran Hotel Elba in Motril.
And just in case you think that the connection between Motril and aeronautics is a recent thing, here’s a bit of local aviation history.
For instance the first balloon flight was a bit of a disaster. It was on the 6th of January 1791 around midday. The balloon didn’t crash or anything, it was just that at the first ever sight of the looming flying object the townsfolk ran off in fright and nine were killed in the stampede – it’s true; we’re not making it up!
Although there have been a couple flying accidents in Motril in the meantime, nobody has been killed.
The photo that we have used, courtesy of the air show’s home page, is of a Dornier Wal flying-boat/seaplane in 1927. There were three of them: Valencia, Cataluña, and Andalucía, all going to fly from Melilla to Santa Isabel just off Spanish Guinea on the Western coast of Africa on the 10th of February the years before. The flight had a military/political/scientific nature. They were to fly in formation all the way.
They managed it without too many problems around Christmas and after a few laps of the island and interior of the Spanish colony, they set off back, arriving back in Atalayón on the 26th of February 1927. In June that same year, the seaplane Andalucia landed in Motril Port to show itself off a bit – nobody was trampled.
Fast forward a decade to 1937, right in the Middle of the Spanish Civil War,and a Spanish Republic Tupolev SB (Katiuska), was shot down, crash landing in the vega between the port and Torrenueva. The Russian pilot survived the crash and tried to torch the damaged aircraft to stop it falling into hands of the nearby Franco troops – his lighter, unfortunately, was out of petrol, so he abandoned the attempt and hopped it fast over into the Republican lines. Franco’s troops, packed up the wreck and took it to Sevilla as a war trophy.
Then a light aircraft (Aisa 115 E.9 – it looks a bit like a 2-seater Chipmunk) crashed just to the north of Motril in 1961. The pilot had managed to bail out but his plane made a mess of somebody’s vegetable plot – is nothing sacred?
And then we come to the most recent flying accident involving Motril: Captain Vera Estela pranged his Mirage F-1 in La Naclar area of Motril at 13.25h on the 11th of October 1983.
Together with aircraft from the same squadron he was carrying out manoeuvres in conjunction with the EVA-9 radar installations above Motril when his controls began to fail. He ejected and landed safely.
That same evening the Commanding Officer of the Motril base went on the local radio to ask locals who might have picked up live ammunition from the wreck site to hand it back – there was no stampede to do so.
(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia -Photos: Motril airshow homepage)