DC-3 G-AMYJ was to play a big part in my life. It was 1959 when Jersey Airlines received their first DC-3, I was 12 years old,  and to introduce the aircraft they operated a series of local Jersey to Jersey flights. at that age, I was aircraft crazy and my mother bought me a ticket for a flight, my first ever flight. The noise smell and vibration, that was it, I was hooked. Little did I know that years later I would fly the same aircraft as a Captain with Intra Airways, not also that, but G-AMYJ was also the last DC-3 I was ever to fly. Fate would have it, that I was also to fly with the same Captain on that flight in 1959, Captain Alan Spenser "Speny", who I flew with for BIA/AirUk on the HP7 Herald. My first flight on G-AMYJ age 12 in 1959 Jersey to Jersey                            My last flight on G-AMYJ as Captain                  4th April 1978 Dinard to Je...

 DC-3  G-AMHJ  incident  4th April 1978 Paul Gulliver image 4th April 1978 was a date I will not forget, I was a Captain with Intra Airways in Jersey CI, and that day our first flight was Jersey -Staverton -Jersey. I and F/O Clive along with CC Fiona pre-flight checked DC-3 G-AMHJ, we had around 25 passengers and around half fuel for the short flight to Staverton. History tells us that Intra at the time was one of the last operators to use the DC-3 for scheduled passenger operations in Europe. The takeoff and flight up to Staverton from Jersey were normal and we arrived overhead the Staverton NDB beacon ready for the non-precision approach. The weather was not brilliant, however, cloud base around 600ft with easterly surface winds allowed the approach to runway 09 at Staverton. Just as we arrived overhead the NDB beacon there was a huge bang accompanied by lots of vibration, as I was handling pilot it felt like a starboard engine failure, as the old pilot adage of ‘d...