Seeking info on Martin Coates – pilot killed in Sudan 1962

I love this thread, good info

Further to above. David Thompson has put me in touch, and Kate Showell and we are now corresponding, and her mother is processing the new information. My thanks once again to all of you who have helped Kate’s mother get closure on this, and especially for David T. Without this thread we would not have been able to get in touch.

Can someone find a way to put me in touch with Kate Showell. The passenger in the aircraft was my father: Albert TG Cocks. They were up taking photographs of the Sennar Dam and the power station (my father was the commissioning engineer, and made friends with Martin who offered to take him up for a flight to get some photographs), and I have eye witness reports of the accident written for my late mother, plus exact location and photographs of the graves. Assumptions are correct, the graves are adjacent to the war graves, sadly now surrounded by a fence and shaded by trees, just outside the war grave area at the south east corner. You can actually see the graves on Google Earth. and where marked https://satellites.pro/Sudan_map#15.597132,32.537773,19  The two graves are adjacent, my father to the south and Martin to the north. I have only just found this thread and only just joined so do not know how or if there are any private message facilities on the forum. I will try to contact the site owners to see if they can put us in contact. PS: I have just joined ppRuNe after following links to the thread there. Regards to all who have posted.

Apologies for assuming the original poster to have been male.

I wonder whether the original poster located the grave of his mother’s fiancée? It seems that he posted only once and thus I doubt that he will read this or thereby be prompted to provide an update.

The original poster kshowell is Kate Showell who at that time lived in Australia and I re-posted her request on PPRuNe which brought some very good and informative replies . Because of the current unrest in the Sudan she has never visited the country although she did go to Egypt . The thread on PPRuNe has taken off again in the last couple of days and can be found here ;
https://www.pprune.org/where-they-now/486993-martin-coates-killed-while-crop-spraying-sudan-1962-a.html .
Thanks for everyone’s interest and as ever if you can add anything then please do .

Although it does not add much detail to the thread – This incident is mentioned in the book Six Feet Over by Peter Charles

On landing I was met by the Entomologist Peter Whitworth,he said ”Martin has crashed into the Dam”.
Martin was a very pleasant New Zealander and a good pilot.He had taken up a visiting Engineer who had been working on the Dam’s Hydro Electric Plant and wanted to take some aerial Pictures.
According to eye witnesses,while flying over the lower part of the Dam,the A/C suddenly turned and dived into the water.
Les Hewitt spent 4 days with a grappling Iron until he located the A/C.A Barge with a diver came down from Khartoum and the A/C was retrieved.Martin and his Passenger were buried in Khartoum .

I wonder whether the original poster located the grave of his mother’s fiancée? It seems that he posted only once and thus I doubt that he will read this or thereby be prompted to provide an update.

This thread not only ran on AB-IX but also on PPRUNE.

Two days ago another message on PPRUNE was posted,

My father, John Hunter-Weston, was a crop-spraying pilot and went to Sudan in 1961. He also worked in the UK. Originally from New Zealand. I know very little about him and I am trying to piece together his very short career. Sadly he died crop-spraying in UK in July 1963. Does his name ring a bell with anyone? He might have worked for Crop Culture (Aerial) Ltd.

I assume he was flying Piper Super Cub G-APUI which crashed after hitting a wire at Good Easter in July 1963.

John H-W does not appear to have been a topdressing pilot in New Zealand, so I cant at this stage find out any more about him.

Ray

Good detective work David. Let’s hope the duff entry that someone put on ASN which indicates wrongly that Mr Coates was involved in the EP-9 accident can be rectified.

Tim

Thanks to Kate Showell in Australia I now have a four page report into the accident compiled by L/G/F/ Hewitt the Operations Manager for Crop Culture (Aerial) Ltd in Khartoum .
The cause of the accident could not be determined but confirms the deaths of both Martin Coates and his passenger who was employed by the English Electric Company and it also confirms the aircraft involved as being Piper PA-18 ST-ABV .

If the lady is convinced that Martin Coates was working for Crop Culture/Britten Norman and died on 02 November. Why have we slipped to the OJ Marmol loss at Maturabi on 03Nov (and this date may be suspect).
I looks like the two accidents have become inter-twined over the years.

G-AOFU had additional stripes on fuselage for the last two years in Sudan- Operated by Marmol not B-N. From memory -nobody died in the accident/pics available & remains wre returned to Southend in Carvair G-APNH.

The “Archive” article I mentioned above contains a later photo of G-AOFU in a different colour scheme to that shown in Mr Clarke’s picture and depicts it with a three bladed prop fitted and spray equipment installed, just prior to departure to Sudan.

To validate that ‘OFU was for certain the aeroplane in which Mr Coates was killed someone would need to verify in official records the accident data provided in “Archive” and ASN.

Tim

The tony Clarke picture of G-AOFU was taken at Stapleford & has nothing to do with the Martin Coats accident.

The redoubtable author Arthur Ord Hume worked for Crop Culture, and though senior in years has a very sharp memory.

Worth a try

http://www.ord-hume.net/

[QUOTE=Dr. John Smith;1897507] … … …
This is a picture of that aircraft, probably taken at Southend in 1957

G-INFO says that ‘OFU was withdrawn from use in 1965 and another forum says that the crashed aircraft was a PA-18, ST-ABV. :confused:

Well, it is probably not much help, but, the aircraft involved was the prototype Edgar Percival EP-9:

c/no. 20 G-AOFU Ep-9 Prototype. Registered 1.11.1955. ff. 12.55 CoA 30.10.1956. Used by Air Ads of Southend until banner towing was made illegal from 31.12.1957. To the Sudan 1958. Crashed Sudan 3.11.1962

source http://www.northwealdairfieldmuseum.com/upload/AIRCRAFT%20MANUFACTURE.pdf and G-INFO at http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/HistoricalMaterial/G-AOFU.pdf

This is a picture of that aircraft, probably taken at Southend in 1957

Can’t really help much with where the pilot was interred: however, if it was in Sudan, I would speculate that you will be probably looking for a Christian cemetary in the Khartoum area.

There may be an outside chance the Public Records Office in Kew have a copy of the aircraft accident report from the CAA AAIB, presumably there was one, since the aircraft was British Registered