South African Airways Flight 201 - Search, Recovery and Investigation

Search, Recovery and Investigation

As soon as it heard of the crash BOAC once again voluntarily grounded all its Comets as it had done three months earlier after the BOAC Flight 781 disaster. The Italian air-sea rescue services were notified, and searching began at dawn the next day, subsequently involving the Royal Navy carrier HMS Eagle and the destroyer HMS Daring. Some time later in the day a report was received from a BEA Ambassador aircraft of a patch of oil some 70 miles (110 km) east of Naples and bodies and wreckage in the water 30 miles (48 km) south-east of Stromboli. The depth of the Mediterranean Sea at the crash site meant that a salvage mission was ruled out as impractical; however, due to the similarities of the two crashes, if the cause of the BOAC crash was found, it would explain the SA crash, as well.