The Stewardess who died was Barbara Jane Harrison, who was awarded a posthumous GC. She could have escaped through the nearby rear passenger door but persisted with her efforts to free to elderly passenger(s). This was real heroism.She is buried in Fulford Cemetry, York.
It was amazing , and a great tribute to the cabin crew's rapid and calm evacuation that the loss of life was not greater. Within a minute or so of the aircraft coming to a halt there was a massive column of acrid black smoke rising from the centre of fuselage , leaving just the area from the forward door to the tip of the nose, and the tail from just forward of the rear door clear.
The intact nose section was later sold to TWA who grafted it onto the front of N776TW, one of the 3 hijacks to Dawsons Field where it had its own forward section blown up.
G-ARWE had an unfortunate career as it had only returned to flying the previous January after substantial and lengthy rebuilding in Honolulu after an incident there. So good was this work that it flew back to London as a scheduled passenger BA 911 ex Honolulu to Tokyo and on to London via Hong Kong and the usual 3 , 4 or 5 stops thereafter. The outbound trip to San Francisco via the same routing had been cancelled to accomodate it. BOAC were, despite its image, very cost conscious and nimble on their feet when opportunities to save money came into sight.
Last edited by Skylion; 3rd Feb 2008 at 11:29.
Reason: Wrong flight number rectified.