Oddly enough the event appears to have gone largely unnoticed by the national press and media but it was headline news in this week's Campbeltown Courier.
One theory is that this particular windmill, one of 46 at the Beinn an Tuirc windfarm, failed to feather its blades when the wind reached dangerous speeds.
In that situation what is supposed to happen is that the blades turn automatically so as to offer no resistance to the wind, and so the windmill stops turning. If this failed to happen then the windmill may well have continued spinning out of control until the strain became too much for the tower to support, hence why it came crashing down.
There's a full investigation underway so hopefully we'll find out the full facts in due course.
Crossing Kintyre on Wednesday of this week I passed through the Deucheran Hill Windfarm where not a blade was turning. Engineers were on-site inspecting the turbines and towers, presumably hoping to prevent any future failures there.
![[Beinn an Tuirc Windfarm]](../clips/windmill1.jpg)