The Cairngorm Plateau disaster, also known as the Feith Buidhe disaster, occurred in November 1971 when six fifteen-year-old Edinburgh school students and their two leaders were 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 tragedy is regarded as Britain's worst mountaineering accident.[1][2][3]
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.
- ^ Duff (2001), p. 107.
- ^ Allen & Davidson (2012), Prologue, p. 13/14.
- ^ Williams, Craig (20 November 2021). "The worst mountain disaster in British history". BBC News.