A GROUP of friends will visit a remote Scottish island in a moving tribute to four East Lancashire men who died in a plane crash almost eight years ago.

They will pay their final respects at the spot where leading industrialist Bob Watts and three other Ribble Valley businessmen and Rotarians died in the crash on Jura in 1992 in a tragedy which stunned the local community.

Mr Watts, of Ribchester, had been travelling in the private plane with Ian Shaw, of Waddington, Jack Greenwood, of Slaidburn, and Trevor Balmforth, of Clitheroe, for a holiday on the Isle of Mull.

The wreckage of the plane was discovered on the summit of Glas Bhein in the Paps Hills on Jura following a major search when the party was reported overdue.

Peter Robinson (pictured), chief executive of Blackburn Partnership and the organisation's chairman Peter Sharman, along with Peter Watkins, of Whitbread and Eddie Runswick, director of community Services for Blackburn with Darwen Council, are flying to Scotland in May. They will travel from Glasgow to Islay and then to Jura where they will leave flowers. On Jura, the island's gamekeeper will escort the group up into the hills where the plane crashed and where some of the wreckage still lies.

Mr Robinson said: "It isn't a pilgrimage as such, but something we have wanted to do for quite a while. Now just seemed the right time to do it.

"We all knew Bob and wanted to visit where it happened and pay our respects."

Although there are no plans to leave a formal memorial at the site, the group will leave flowers.

Mr Watts, who co-founded Blackburn-based Presspart and Decorpart of Nelson, had been a keen Rotarian and heavily involved in the organisation's Young Inventor competition aimed at schoolchildren and students. He was 55 when he died.

Trevor Balmforth, 60, had owned a carpet factory and was a qualified pilot and kept his own light aircraft as did Mr Watts, who was chairman of Blackburn Partnership.

Ian Shaw, 53, was a fishmonger who ran a stall on Clitheroe market and a shop on Wellgate in the town and Jack Greenwood, 45, was a builder.

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