• Blue Air

Early in 1954 Independent Air Travel, a travel agency established in January of the preceding year, was bought out by a group of pilots headed by Capt. Marian Kozuba-Kozubski, a Polish wartime RAF flyer and former chief pilot of the Avro Tudor operator, William Dempster. Operating from Bournemouth’s Hurn airport under the title, Independent Air Transport, ad hoc passenger and freight charters were flown with a single Avro Anson, in turn replaced with two DH Doves in 1955. During April 1956 Independent Air Travel obtained a small fleet of four Vickers Vikings from British West Indian Airways, with which the airline undertook several inclusive-tour contracts for holiday flights to the continent. Six of these aircraft were in service by 1957 and were joined by two Douglas DC-4s towards the end of the year, one of which was briefly leased to El Al.  One of these aircraft, G-APID, became involved in a dramatic incident on New Year’s Eve 1957, when it was forced-down in Albania by MiG fighters after an alleged airspace violation.

The 1958 season was a busy and successful one for Independent Air Travel with its fleet of nine Vikings and DC-4s now mainly based at Blackbushe airport and fully engaged in inclusive tour work, long-haul charters and occasional movements on behalf of other airlines. Plans were also in hand to operate a Caribbean coach-class service to the Bahamas and British Guiana using a DC-6B, though this idea was subsequently dropped. However, Independent’s apparently happy situation changed suddenly with the loss of Viking G-AIJE on the morning of 2 September 1958. After departure from London-Heathrow carrying two spare Proteus turbo-prop engines destined for El Al’s workshops at Tel Aviv, the Viking suffered an engine failure and elected to divert to Blackbushe to effect repairs. En-route the Viking wandered off course and, unable to maintain height, crashed on the residential area of Southall, a few miles north of Heathrow, with the loss of all aboard.

This mishap received nationwide press coverage and the subsequent enquiry revealed many shortcomings in the airline’s operational and engineering practices; the Viking was found to be over-loaded and pre-flight engine maintenance had been conducted by unqualified personnel. Shortly afterwards, in March 1959, Kozubski left the airline to form Falcon Airways, taking with him a Viking and a Beech 18 as recompense. Reacting to the adverse publicity, Independent Air Transport adopted the name Blue Air from April 1959 and under this banner continued its holiday operations through the following summer, particularly for Universal Sky Tours, founded by Capt. Ted Langton, one of the airline’s former directors. But even under its new title the airline could not shake off the repercussions of the damage to its reputation and at the end of the summer operations were wound down. On 16 October 1959 all aircraft positioned back to Blackbushe and thereafter operations ceased.