As soon as it heard of the crash , BOAC once again voluntarily grounded all of its Comets as it had done three months earlier after the BOAC Flight 781 disaster . The Italian air-sea rescue services were notified , and searching began at dawn the next day , subsequently involving the Royal Navy carrier and the destroyer . Some time later that day , a report was received from a BEA Ambassador aircraft of an oil patch some east of Naples and bodies and wreckage in the water south-east of Stromboli . The depth of the Mediterranean Sea at the crash site meant that a salvage mission was ruled out as impractical , but if the cause of the BOAC crash was found , it would also explain the SA crash due to the close similarities of the two
BOAC Flight 781 disaster
BOAC Flight 781
South African Airways Flight 201