I met Martin, many years ago, when we shared a table at the greasy spoon staff cafe on the Southend north side. We were both hanging around, waiting for something, or someone, as you often do in our world, and he told me the whole story.
I thought it was an elaborate fairy story, at first, but then he showed me the photograph of the wing, sans engines!.
He told the story with a great deal of wit, and humour, often associated with events like these. Just two of the amusing details were,1, No one at Boeing had ever been pessimistic enough to calculate an appropriate threshold speed for a two engines out, no flaps, no slats, landing with a 30kt tailwind! And 2. As the aircraft finally came to a halt, after careering across the grass, he looked out of the window, and there was a sign saying 'DO NOT PASS THIS POINT'.
As is often said in other circumstances, you couldn't have made it up!
MJ
