An investigation by Keighley divers into a Lake District plane crash have helped a grandmother track down relatives.

The niece of one of the men killed in the crash has been able to talk to some family members for the first time.

Penelope Wyatt-Nicolle drew on research carried out by members of the Keighley branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club. She has obtained a photograph of her uncle Phillip Royston Mallorie, who died in the 1945 crash at the age of 17 after he had lied about his age so he could join up.

The scuba divers had been diving in Wastwater to seek wreckage of a Royal Navy Grumman Avenger that crashed during the Second World War.

All three men aboard the plane, which hit a scree slope at the foot of Scafell Pike during a night flight, were killed.

The divers recently found the plane's engine and will return to England's deepest lake in April to search for the tail section.

Club members appealed for information about the crash and the three airmen.

News reached Mrs Wyatt-Nicolle, of Guernsey, who had already traced a brother and sister she never knew because she had been adopted as a baby.

Talks with the Sub-Aqua Club led her to a previously-unknown relative, Mr Mallorie’s first-cousin Nancy Chew, who spent a lot of time with him when he was young.

She said: “Nancy, who is now in her 80s, apparently moved to Keswick in the early 1960s. She has filled in some of the gaps in my birth family tree.”

Keighley Sub-Aqua club spokesman Graham Clay said the hunt for information about the crash and the three airmen had become an obsession for club members.

He said: “It's one thing to find bits of the wreckage, but there seems to be very little known about the human side of the tragedy.

“We are delighted with the response to our appeal, particularly in relation to the crew men.

“It's nice to know our research into the crash is putting a few important pieces of jigsaw in a few family histories into place.”