MANCHESTER UNITED'S ACCIDENT IN 1958

This article is about the 1958 crash of the aircraft carrying the Manchester United football team. For the 1960 accident, see 1960 Munich Convair 340 crash.                                                                           

The Munich air disaster occurred on 6 February 1958 when British European Airways flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport, West Germany. On the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes", along with supporters and journalists. 20 of the 44 on the aircraft died. The injured, some unconscious, were taken to the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich where three more died, resulting in 23 fatalities with 21 survivors.
The football team was returning from a European Cup match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) against Red Star Belgrade. The flight stopped to refuel in Munich because a non-stop flight from Belgrade to Manchester was out of the "Elizabethan" class Airspeed Ambassador aircraft's range. After refuelling, pilots James Thain and Kenneth Rayment twice abandoned take-off because of boost surging in the left engine. Fearing they would get too far behind schedule, Captain Thain rejected an overnight stay in Munich in favour of a third take-off attempt. By then, snow was falling, causing a layer of slush at the end of the runway. After the aircraft hit the slush, it ploughed through a fence beyond the end of the runway and the left wing was torn off after hitting a house. Fearing the aircraft might explode, Thain began evacuating passengers while Manchester United goalkeeper Harry Gregg helped pull survivors from the wreckage.
An investigation by West German airport authorities originally blamed Thain, saying he did not de-ice the aircraft's wings, despite eyewitness statements to the contrary. It was later established that the crash was caused by slush on the runway, which slowed the plane too much to take-off. Thain was cleared in 1968, ten years after the incident.
Manchester United were trying to become the third club to win three successive English league titles; they were six points behind League leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers with 14 games to go. They also held the Charity Shield and had just advanced into their second successive European Cup semi-final. The team had not been beaten for 11 matches.

Aircraft and crew

The aircraft was a six-year-old Airspeed Ambassador 2, built in 1952 and delivered to BEA the same year.^{[citation needed]}
The co-pilot, Captain Kenneth Rayment, was a former RAF flight lieutenant and Second World War flying ace. After joining the RAF in 1940, he was promoted to sergeant in September 1941. He was commissioned as a war substantive pilot officer a year later, and promoted to war substantive flying officer in May 1943. He shot down five German fighters, one Italian plane and a V-1 flying bomb. He was awarded the DFC in July 1943, and promoted to flight lieutenant in September 1943. After leaving the RAF in 1945, he joined BOAC in Cairo, before joining BEA in 1947. He had had experience with Vikings, Dakotas and the Ambassador Elizabethan class.
The pilot, Captain James Thain, was also a former RAF flight lieutenant. Also originally a sergeant (later a warrant officer), he was given an emergency commission in the RAF as an acting pilot officer on probation in April 1944, and promoted to pilot officer on probation in September. He was promoted to flight lieutenant in May 1948,and received a permanent commission in the same rank in 1952. He retired from the RAF to join BEA.

Crash

The Airspeed Ambassador G-ALZU burning at Munich

Thain had flown the "Elizabethan" class Airspeed Ambassador (registration G-ALZU) to Belgrade but handed the controls to Rayment for the return.  At 14:19 GMT, the control tower at Munich was told the plane was ready to take off and gave clearance for take-off, expiring at 14:31. Rayment abandoned the take-off after Thain 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 called off 40 seconds into the attempt because the engines were running on an over-rich mixture, causing them to over-accelerate, a common problem for the Elizabethan. After the second failure, passengers 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 sent a telegram to his landlady in Manchester. It read: "All flights cancelled, flying tomorrow. Duncan."

The Airspeed Ambassador wreckage

Thain told the station engineer, Bill Black, about the problem with the boost surging in the port engine, and Black suggested that since opening the throttle more slowly had not worked, the only option was to hold the plane overnight for retuning. Thain was anxious to stay on schedule and suggested 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 almost 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long, he believed this would not be a problem. The passengers were then called back to the plane 15 minutes after leaving it.
A few of the players were not confident fliers, particularly Liam Whelan, who said, "This may be death, but I'm ready". Others, including Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor, Mark Jones, Eddie Colman and Frank Swift, moved to the back of the plane, believing it safer. Once everyone was on board, Thain and Rayment got the plane moving again 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, they made final cockpit checks and at 15:02, they were told their take-off clearance would expire at 15:04. The pilots agreed to attempt take-off, but that they would watch the instruments for surging in the engines. At 15:03, they told the control tower of their decision.

American newsreel footage reporting the crash

Rayment moved the throttle forward slowly and released the brakes; the plane began to accelerate, and radio officer Bill Rodgers radioed the control tower with the message "Zulu Uniform rolling". Throwing up slush as it gathered speed, Thain called out the plane's velocities in 10-knot increments. At 85 knots, the port engine began to surge again, and he pulled back marginally on the port throttle before pushing it forward again. Once the plane reached 117 knots (217 km/h), he announced "V1", at which it was no longer safe to abort take-off, and Rayment listened for the call of "V2" (119 knots (220 km/h)), the minimum required to get off the ground. Thain expected the speed to rise, but it fluctuated around 117 knots before suddenly dropping 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.
The plane skidded off the end of the runway, crashed into the fence surrounding the airport and 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 and the mother and the other three children escaped as the house caught fire. Part of the plane's tail was torn off 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.
On seeing flames around the cockpit, Thain feared the aircraft would explode and told 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, followed by radio officer Bill Rodgers. Rayment was trapped in his seat by the crumpled fuselage and told Thain to go without him. Thain clambered out of the galley window. On reaching the ground, he saw flames growing under the starboard wing, which held 500 imperial gallons (2,300 L) of fuel. He shouted to his crew to get away and climbed back into the aircraft to retrieve two handheld fire extinguishers, stopping to tell Rayment he would be back when the fires had been dealt with.

Meanwhile, in the cabin, goalkeeper Harry Gregg was regaining consciousness, thinking that he was dead. He felt blood on his face and "didn't dare put [his] hand up. [He] thought the top of [his] head had been taken off, like a hard boiled egg."^[  Just above him, light shone into the cabin, so Gregg kicked the hole wide enough for him to escape. He also managed to save some passengers.