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Inside Out West: Memorial flight takes place 35 years after Swiss air crash
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In April 1973, the county of Somerset was in mourning after a day trip to Switzerland turned to tragedy, when a plane crashed in a blinding snow storm on a mountainside in Basle, killing 108 people.
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Inside Out West (Friday 11 April 2008 at 7.30pm on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔΜύOne West) follows one man's personal pilgrimage to the crash site where he lost his father and grandmother.
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Roger Keen was just 14 years old when the tragic air crash took place. The day started so full of excitement – friends in the local ladies guild, neighbours, even a skittles team – came together for a day trip to Switzerland.
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However the plane never reached its destination. Most of the victims were mothers from the town of Axbridge and the villages of Cheddar, Yatton and Congresbury.
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Roger remembers sitting in front of the television, avidly listening out for the names of the 37 passengers who had survived the crash. It was later confirmed that his father, Roy Keen, who had taken a last minute place on the trip, and his grandmother, Louisa Davis, were among the dead.
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Roger, now 49 years old, has over the past two years fulfilled a childhood ambition to learn to fly. He wants to finish the trip that his father and grandmother took 35 years ago, by flying a plane from Dunkeswell in Devon to the international airport in Basle, Switzerland.
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Roger says: "At the time life seemed to go on more or less as normal but recently I seem to have been thinking about it a lot more.
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"I think for me to fly to Switzerland to complete the flight my father never finished, to fly to Basle and go up the mountain to see the memorial that's there, then hopefully it will draw a line under everything for me."
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At first Roger's plans are scuppered by poor weather – a flurry of snow prevents him from taking off. But after a few days of waiting for the conditions to improve, Roger guides his small plane down the runway and up into the sky.
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After nearly six hours in the air, plus refuelling and customs stops in France, he safely touches down at the international airport in the Swiss city of Basle.
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Roger says: "Coming in to land you could see the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Same runway, same direction – it all added to the sense of completion on landing."
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The following day Roger makes an emotional trek up to the mountainside to see for himself the memorial which has been built at the woodland spot where the plane crashed.
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Clearly moved by the whole experience, he says: "I had no idea what the memorial would be like and I wanted to see it and leave some flowers. I've now done that. To me it's a completion; it can never be final, just a laying to rest."
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Inside Out West is on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One in the West region at 7.30pm on Friday 11 April. It can also be seen outside the West region using the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iPlayer and on digital satellite channel 986.
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Notes to Editors
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Roger grew up in Cheddar but now lives at Highbridge near Burnham on Sea.
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He is available for telephone interview by contacting the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔΜύBristol Press Office. Μύ
As Roger has never been at the controls of his plane abroad before, he was accompanied on the trip by 20-year-old Daniel Granger from Bridgwater, an RAF pilot home on leave. Daniel qualified as a pilot when he was 17.
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