Search results for ""author keith mccloskey""

Airwork Ltd/Airwork Services, now owned by VT group plc, has a long and distinguished history. It played an important role in defence support services to the RAF, Fleet Air Arm and overseas air forces, as well as in the development of civil aviation. Created at Heston in 1928, it maintained Whitley bombers and de Havilland Tiger Moths in the 1930s and established the precursors of the post-WW2 airlines of Egypt, India and Rhodesia. Post-war it was the first airline to be awarded a troop flying contract and expanded into civil aviation, developing flights to Africa and the US. The main independent airline in the 1950s, it became part of British United Airways in 1960, also establishing many airlines around the world, including Deutsche Flugdienst (Condor), Misr-Airwork (Egyptair), and the Sudanese National Airline. Here Keith McCloskey presents the first history of this important airline and reveals its impact on aviation history.

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On 26 December 1900, the vessel Hesperus arrived at Eilean Mor in the remote Outer Hebrides with a relief lighthouseman and fresh provisions. The lighthouse had been in operation for a year, but it had been noted that no light had been seen from Eilean Mor for several days. The relief keeper, Joseph Moore, found the lighthouse to be completely deserted, and a subsequent search of the island failed to reveal any sign of what had happened to the three keepers. The last entry in the logbook had been made on 15 December and contained a number of strange and distressing clues as to the mental states of the men. One was reported to have been crying, while another had become ‘very quiet’. When it was revealed that the men’s oilskin coats were missing and the clock in the lighthouse had stopped, theories surrounding the keepers’ fates inevitably proliferated. These included a giant wave washing them away, murder or suicide. Others favoured more esoteric explanations – Eilean Mor was believed to have mystical properties. In The Lighthouse, Keith McCloskey explores this mysterious and chilling story in depth for the first time and reveals a shocking conclusion.

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Conspiracy theories of sabotage, murder and even UFOs flourish around the greatest unsolved mysteries of aviation from the twentieth century. This account of the most intriguing loose ends from aeronautical history provides the known details of five great mysteries and the best (and most colourful) attempts to explain what might have happened. Planes disappearing out of the sky, shady dealings with Sri-Lankan businessmen, the plummeting death of the richest man in the world in 1928 and even the Kennedy family all feature in these gripping open cases. Having previously written about the Dyatlov Pass Incident and cast his detail-oriented eye over many other aviation mishaps, Keith McCloskey now turns his attention to reassessing these five mysteries –all of which occurred over water, none of them ever resolved.

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In January 1959, ten experienced young skiers set out for Mount Otorten in the far north of Russia. While one of the skiers fell ill and returned., the remaining nine lost their way and ended up on another mountain slope known as Kholat Syakhl (or ‘Mountain of the Dead’). On the night of 1 February 1959 something or someone caused the skiers to flee their tent in such terror that they used knives to slash their way out. Search parties were sent out and their bodies were found, some with massive internal injuries but with no external marks on them. The autopsy stated the violent injuries were caused by ‘an unknown compelling force’. The area was sealed off for years by the authorities and the full events of that night remained unexplained. Using original research carried out in Russia and photographs from the skier's cameras, Keith McCloskey attempts to explain what happened to the nine young people who lost their lives in the mysterious ‘Dyatlov Pass Incident’.

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