Munich Air Disaster - Crash

Crash

Captain James Thain, the pilot, had flown the "Elizabethan" class Airspeed Ambassador (registration G-ALZU) out to Belgrade, but handed the controls to his co-pilot, Captain Kenneth Rayment, for the return journey. At 14:19 GMT, the control tower at Munich airport was told that the plane was ready to take off, and they were given clearance to attempt take-off due to expire at 14:31. Captain Rayment abandoned the take off after Captain Thain had noticed the port boost pressure gauge fluctuating as the plane reached full power and the engine sounded odd while accelerating. A second attempt was made three minutes later, but, 40 seconds into the procedure, this too was called off before the plane got off the ground. The reason given for the failed attempts was that the engines had been running on an over-rich mixture, causing the engines to over-accelerate, a common problem for the Elizabethan-class plane. After the second failure, all the passengers were told to disembark from the plane and they retreated to the airport lounge. By then, it had started to snow heavily, and it looked unlikely that the plane would be making the return journey that day. Manchester United's Duncan Edwards took the opportunity to send a telegram ahead to his landlady in Manchester. It read: "All flights cancelled, flying tomorrow. Duncan."

Captain Thain informed the station engineer, Bill Black, about the problem with the boost surging in the port engine, and Black suggested that since the immediate solution of opening the engine throttle more slowly had not worked, the only remaining option would be to hold the plane in Munich overnight for engine retuning. Thain was anxious to stay on schedule and suggested that opening the throttle even more slowly would suffice. This would mean that the plane would not achieve take-off velocity until further down the runway, but with the runway being almost 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long, Thain believed that this should not pose a problem. Therefore, despite the snow, the passengers were called back out to the plane just 15 minutes after leaving it.

A few of the players were not confident fliers, particularly Liam Whelan, who was heard to say "This may be death, but I'm ready" shortly before take off. Others, including Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor, Mark Jones, Eddie Colman and Frank Swift moved to the back of the plane, believing it to be safer. Once everyone was back on board, Captains Thain and Rayment got the plane moving again for a third take off attempt at 14:56. At 14:59, they reached the runway holding point, where they received clearance to line up ready for take-off. On the runway, the final cockpit checks were carried out and at 15:02, they were contacted to tell them that their take-off clearance would expire at 15:04. After discussion, the pilots agreed that they would attempt take-off, but they would keep a close watch on the instruments in case of any more surging in the engines. At 15:03, they contacted the control tower to inform them of their decision.

Captain Rayment slowly moved the throttle forward, as agreed, and released the brakes; the plane began to accelerate, and radio officer Bill Rodgers radioed the control tower with the message "Zulu Uniform rolling". As the plane gathered speed, throwing up slush as it went, Captain Thain called out the velocities in ten-knot increments. At 85 knots, the port engine began to surge again, and he pulled back marginally on the port throttle before gingerly pushing it forward again. Once the plane reached 117 knots (217 km/h), he announced "V1", indicating that they had reached the velocity at which it was no longer safe to abort the take off, and Captain Rayment listened out for the call of "V2" (119 knots (220 km/h)), the minimum speed required to get the plane off the ground. When Thain glanced back down to the airspeed indicator, expecting the needle to continue to rise, it fluctuated at around 117 knots before suddenly dropping back down to 112 knots (207 km/h), and then 105 knots (194 km/h). Rayment shouted "Christ, we won't make it!", as Thain looked up to see what lay ahead of them.

The plane skidded off the end of the runway and, out of control, crashed into the fence surrounding the airport and then across a road before its port wing was torn off as it caught a house, home to a family of six. The father and eldest daughter were away at the time, and the mother and the other three children narrowly escaped with their lives as the house caught fire. Part of the plane's tail was torn off too, before the left side of the cockpit hit a tree. The right side of the fuselage hit a wooden hut, inside which was a truck filled with tyres and fuel, which exploded. Twenty passengers died on board, and there were three subsequent deaths.

Upon seeing the flames licking up around the cockpit, Captain Thain feared that the burning fuel might make the aircraft explode and instructed his crew to evacuate the area. The stewardesses, Rosemary Cheverton and Margaret Bellis, were the first to leave through a blown-out emergency window in the galley, and they were followed by radio officer Bill Rodgers. Thain shouted to Rayment to get out of his seat, but Rayment was trapped in his seat by the crumpled fuselage. Rayment told Thain to go on without him. Thain clambered out of the galley window. Upon reaching the ground, he saw that flames were growing under the starboard wing, which still had an intact fuel tank containing 500 imperial gallons (2,300 L) of fuel. He shouted to his crew to get as far away as possible and climbed back into the aircraft to retrieve two handheld fire extinguishers, stopping momentarily to tell Rayment that he would be back for him when the fires had been dealt with.

Meanwhile, inside the passenger cabin, Manchester United goalkeeper Harry Gregg was regaining consciousness, thinking that he was dead. He felt blood running down his face and he "didn't dare put hand up. thought the top of head had been taken off, like a hard boiled egg." Just above him, a shaft of light was shining into the cabin, so Gregg made his way towards it and kicked the hole wide enough for him to escape through.