HMS Blackburn was the lead ship of the Blackburn-class aircraft transports built for the Royal Navy in World War II.[1]
She was launched on 25 March 1944[2] at Blyth Shipbuilding & Dry Docks Company in Blyth, Northumberland, England. With a length of 172 feet (52 metres) and a beam of 30 feet (9 metres), she displaced 990 tons. Her propulsion consisted of two 8-cylinder diesel engines. The ship's purpose was to transport aircraft and spare parts along the coasts of the British Isles.
In 1950 she became a RNVR training ship.
In July 1968 the ship was sold to Pounds Shipowners and Shipbreakers Ltd in Portsmouth, but was subsequently sold again to Gardline Shipping in Great Yarmouth, a company founded in 1969 to provide offshore services to the oil and gas industry in the North Sea. Gardline Shipping had the ship converted into a deep sea research vessel and renamed her Gardline Locater (IMO number 7048063, 747 GRT).
In July 1985 the ship played a key role in the recovery of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) of Air India Flight 182 that disintegrated in mid air after a bomb explosion on 23 June 1985 with 329 people on board off the southwest coast of Ireland. Gardline Locater, equipped with sophisticated sonar, and the French cable-laying vessel Léon Thévenin, with her robot submarine Scarab 1,[3] were dispatched to locate the CVR and FDR boxes. They would be difficult to find and it was imperative that the search commence quickly. On 4 July, Gardline Locater detected the signals of these boxes on the sea bed at a depth of more than 2000 meters. On 9 July, Scarab 1 pinpointed the CVR and raised it to the surface; the next day, she also located and recovered the FDR.[4][5]
In August 1997 the ship was sold to Singapore to be scrapped.
References
edit- ^ Maurice Cocker: Aircraft-carrying Ships of the Royal Navy, History Press, Stroud (Gloucestershire), 2008, ISBN 0752446339, pg. 125–126
- ^ J. J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy, Chatham Book, Casemate, Philadelphia & Newbury, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935149-07-1, pg. 45
- ^ = Submerged Craft Assisting Repair and Burial.
- ^ „6000 Feet Down, Robot Grabs Air-India Jet Recorder“ (Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1985)
- ^ "First salvage raised from Air India crash", New Scientist[permanent dead link], 11 July 1985, pp. 26–27
Literature
edit- J. J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy, Chatham Book, Casemate, Philadelphia & Newbury, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935149-07-1, pg. 45
- Maurice Cocker: Aircraft-carrying ships of the Royal Navy, History Press, Stroud (Gloucestershire), 2008, ISBN 0752446339, S. 125–126