In remembrance of Dan Air 1008
 

32 years to the day since Dan Air 1008 was lost at Tenerife. To this day still the largest loss of life involving a British airliner.

RIP

G BDAN R.I.P

Air Accidents Investigation: 8/1981 G-BDAN

Full report on Red Whelan's last flight here. Long may we have non worse ... or anywhere near as bad.

Interesting old Panorama report into this accident as well

We had just completed our Area Famil' written exam in the training section at EGCC and saw the aircraft depart from R/W 06.
I stayed at The Airport Hotel (on Ringway Rd), as an ATCO cadet in 1979-81 and had the pleasure of meeting Red Whelan, who was a regular guest.
Dot and Reg, who were our wonderful hosts at 'The APH' were devastated by the loss of that flight.
I believe that one of my course-mates was on a 'fam' flight on a Beatours 707 which was following DA1008.

Still a small memorial in Chapel in Gatwick South remembering the flight.

Why Gatwick ? when the flight was from Manchester ?

Interesting about the BEA, Apparently according to facts, once the controller had lost contact with G-BDAN he inadvertently gave the same instructions to a following BEA and a Britannia, fortunately they chose to ignore the misunderstood holding instruction "turn to the left" and chose to continue with a normal approach.
I wonder if anyone can shed some light on the above account.

Because Dan-Air was a Gatwick based airline.

Mentioned at the time was the fact that the holding clearance issued by the controller was in an American format not used in the UK and therefore likely to confuse the pilots. I believe I am right in saying that if, on first contact with the controller, you are instructed; "Roger 1008, maintain (height given), FP, 150, left hand" that is a clearance to the FP beacon, Left Hand Turns, inbound track to the beacon is 150 degrees and perfectly acceptable in the USA. In the UK we would expect something along the lines of, "Roger 1008, proceed to the FP beacon to hold, at (height given), the inbound track is 150 degrees with Left Turns in the hold, call entering the hold".