A local woman yesterday told how she narrowly avoided being involved in a mysterious 1947 plane crash.

"I've always been reluctant to fly and now I remember why,'' said Bermudian Jo Draycott, who told The Royal Gazette how she had been on the trans-Atlantic leg of a flight between London, England and Santiago, Chile, which disappeared over the Argentina's Andes mountains.

The wreckage of the British South American Airlines aircraft was recently discovered scattered across a mountainside, 18,700 feet up.

A Reuters story in yesterday's Royal Gazette reported the circumstances surrounding the crash -- in which 11 passengers and crew were killed -- still remains shrouded in mystery.

A British Ministry of Aviation's 1948 crash report hypothesised that severe ice build-up on the wings may have brought the plane down.

Mrs. Draycott said she had been travelling on the second leg of the flight, between the Azores and Bermuda, with her young son to rejoin her husband who was on the Island working with Cable & Wireless.

"We were lucky to get on that flight because there weren't many spaces,'' she said, "but then I heard it crashed in the Andes later on, and it made me think.

"I think my son and I were the only passengers to get off when we stopped on the Island.'' Mrs. Draycott explained the flight from London to Bermuda took around 18 hours. And she said that, despite the weather on the voyage being "pretty good'', the fact that she was travelling on that type of aircraft -- a Lancastrian Mark III -- had unnerved her slightly.

Lancastrians were unpressurised aircraft that were adapted from Second World War Lancaster bombers by sealing the bomb bays, removing the gun turrets and streamlining the nose and tail, according to Reuters news service.

But Mrs. Draycott said the article got it wrong when it said passengers on the plane most likely sat down one side facing the other wall.

"There were sets of four seats with a table between them on either side of the plane,'' she said. "But it was still quite cramped and the flight seemed to go on for ages.

"Luckily there were some very nice people with us. They were Greek refugees going to Argentina and they told me about themselves and rocked my son for a while so I had a chance to relax a bit.

"I remember how when we took off from the Azores the pilot said to us we were just passing the point of no return. It was quite a trip.'' Mrs. Draycott added that this had not been the only time she had narrowly missed being in a plane crash.

"I came into Bermuda from New York once on one of the flying boats,'' she said. "My husband, whose job it was to monitor flights coming in, said it was lucky we landed when we did because one of the engines was feathering (faltering).

"I've always been reluctant to fly and now I remember why,'' she said. "My husband and I always tried to take boats whenever we could.'' But asked if she felt she was lucky, Mrs. Draycott said: "Yes, I suppose I must be.''