On the weekend of 27/28 September 2003, the city of Mâcon, France celebrated the service by Imperial Airways flying boats in 1938 and 1939. During those years, the Imperial flying boats landed on the Saône River, which runs through the centre of Mâcon. The event was called "Imperial Airways 2003 - des hydravions sur la Saône" - "Imperial Airways 2003 - The Flying Boats on the Saône".

Mâcon was served by Imperial Airways twice a week between Southampton and Egypt via Marseilles and Brindisi. Some of the flights continued through to Australia and some continued through from Egypt to South Africa. Imperial had a contract with the French Post Office to carry mail to and from Mâcon, and the Chamber of Commerce guaranteed Imperial a certain amount of revenue per year for the two years. As part of the event, there was a week long exhibition of photos, documents and memorabilia, partly in the City Hall and partly on a boat moored on the Saône near the hotel which was used by Imperial for its passengers - the Hôtel d'Europe et d'Angleterre. This is still one of the principle hotels in Mâcon.

Left:
Capricornus during its short career in which only 10 hours flying was amassed in it's log book. (N. Farley)

I attended the events on the Saturday and Sunday and represented the BAeF. The first event was a memorial ceremony in commemoration of the crash of the Imperial Airways "Capricornus" near the village of Ouroux, which is about 20 kilometers from Mâcon. A memorial stone with an appropriate plaque was erected at the exact site of the crash and it was unveiled at the ceremony. There was never before any memorial at the crash site.

All of the interested people met at the town hall in Ouroux and then drove in tandem up the hills to the crash site. There were brief speeches by the Mayor & Deputy Mayor of Ouroux, and by Reg Howarth, a member of the Royal Air Force Association, who lives near Mâcon and was one of the organizers of the entire Imperial Airways celebration.  This writer took some photos at the ceremony and a few of them are shown. In the town hall, there was an excellent exhibition of photos related to the Capricornus crash as well as the service by Imperial Airways at Mâcon. This writer contributed to this exhibit, a number of photos, British newspaper clippings and reproductions of two covers which were salvaged from the crash.

The crash site is at the top of a ridge in the Beaujolais Mountains southwest of Mâcon. The Capricornus was a brand new Short S.23 'C' Class flying boat, and it was on its inaugural flight to Egypt and South Africa. It was caught in a heavy snowstorm in the Rhone Valley.  The pilot lost all visibility and circled around while trying to determine his position by radio. There was much confusion between the pilots and the air traffic controllers on the aircraft's position and the pilots were way off course and much too low for the mountainous terrain where they were flying. It was also believed that the aircraft encountered severe icing. The aircraft wing hit two trees, and the aircraft then crashed into the edge of a pine forest at 2,200 feet altitude. The two tree trunks are still standing, and the writer took a photo, which shows them clearly (see right). Five of the six occupants were killed.  There was one passenger on her way to South Africa, and the others were all crew members. The Radio Operator J.L. Cooper survived and he escaped from the wreckage with only a broken arm, and found aid at a nearby farm. 

40 kilos of gold & jewels, and 65 bags of mail were recovered.  The mail was recovered on the 25^th and sent to Mâcon, and was then carried onward by the "Cygnus". The mail was not damaged, so no special markings were applied. Very few covers have been recorded. In The Postal History of British Air Mails, by Edward B. Proud, he reported mail to Australia, India, Malaya which left London on 24 March 1937. The writer has seen two covers from the crash - both addressed to India (see below).

Later on Saturday, there was a conference "Mâcon des Hydravions sur la Saône", with a lecture by a local historian, and he showed slides with many photos of the Imperial service at Mâcon and the Capricornus crash.

On Sunday, it was pouring down rain. There were supposed to be 4 seaplanes/flying boats from the Aero Club of Lake Como, Italy making flights from the river, but only two showed up. They were offering ten minute rides for 50 Euros. One was a single engine Lake flying boat, and the other was a small pontoon fitted seaplane. There were supposed to be two helicopters on pontoons and captive flights with a hot air balloon, but they did not show up because of the bad weather.

There were two special postcards issued for the event - one very colourful card showing a stylized drawing of an Imperial flying boat with the registration letters G-ABTI, which was the Armstrong Whitworth AW XV Atalanta Class "Atalanta" (shown at the beginning of this page). Of course, this was not a flying boat, so it was a poor choice to use as the model for the postcard design. The other card (see right) shows three photos related to the Capricornus crash, one showing the top of the ridge where the aircraft crashed, one showing the wrecked aircraft in the snow, and the third one showing the crowd in front of the church in Ouroux at the funeral for the people killed in the crash. The postcards were being sold for one Euro each. Unfortunately, because it was a Sunday, no postal facilities were available to get the cards postmarked.

In spite of the bad weather on the Sunday, it was a very interesting two days.