Cairngorm Plateau disaster

Common card · No. 494587

The Cairngorm Plateau disaster, also known as the Feith Buidhe disaster, occurred in November 1971 when six fifteen-year-old students from Edinburgh's Ainslie Park High School and their two leaders embarked on a two-day navigational expedition in a remote area of the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands. While the group was on the high plateau, the weather deteriorated and so they decided to head for the Curran shelter, a rudimentary refuge. When they failed to reach it, the group became stranded in the open for two nights in a blizzard. Five youths and the leader's assistant died of exposure. A sixth student and the group's leader survived the ordeal with severe hypothermia and frostbite. The disaster is regarded as Britain's worst mountaineering accident. A fatal accident inquiry led to formal requirements being placed on leaders for school expeditions. After acrimony in political, mountaineering and police circles, the Curran shelter was demolished in 1975.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Stuart L, CC BY-SA 2.0