Munich accident 1958

[WHBM]

50 years ago today.

The Airspeed Ambassador was coming out of BEA service at the time, they had been in service only a few years but were all withdrawn by 6 months after the accident. Wondering why the type was used for the flight instead of a Viscount, which BEA had a very large fleet of by 1958.

Was it just there were plenty of spare ones around for the charter ?

Was no turbine fuel available at Belgrade ? There were no other turbine operators scheduled into Belgrade in 1958.

Was the end of the Ambassador hastened as a type with BEA due to the adverse publicity ? Actually all the contemporary news articles I have seen call it an "Elizabethan", the BEA class name (at the time BEA used their own aircraft type names rather than those of the manufacturer for several types). I doubt many of the subsequent passengers knew the connection.

[rog747]

hi whbm sorry i cant help you on the questions,

if yer interested on uktv history later today at 4pm is a 1hr docu about the crash
and at 10pm bbc4 another program very moving

also one minutes silence at the big footie game tonight

[llanfairpg]

There were not too many operators of the Ambassador-- BKS was one, anyone know where they were built?

[WHBM]

Airspeed built the Ambassador at Christchurch, Hampshire, a wartime second location for them compared to their traditional home base in Portsmouth. They had built thousands of Consul twin-engined trainers/light transports for the RAF in the war.

The only significant order was for 20 from BEA, there were just a couple of oddball others. After BEA withdrew them they found a niche with independents - BKS, Autair, Dan-Air, Globe Air Switzerland, etc. Three were sold to Butler in Australia and actually delivered but something went wrong contractually and they were flown back to Britain again. It was a good, pressurized, 5-seats-across aircraft for the secondhand market in the 1950s, but presumably became difficult to support.

[krujje]

Just noted that today is the 50th anniversary of the crash of BEA flight 609 in Munich, 6 Feb 1958, carrying the Manchester United football team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster

[iwalkedaway]

The hounding of Captain James Thain itself became something of a landmark in civil aviation history - or should have done...

For a telling description of the accident itself see:

http://www.thebusbybabes.com/munich/munich.htm

[JEM60]

Crash occurred when I was 15. Some time later, I courted a young lady for a time, who was Capt. Rayment's niece. Later, helping a farmer friend to by an egg grader for his farm, called on someone selling one, none other than Capt.Thain. Bit spooky to have a connection with both pilots!!

[dhavillandpilot]

My father was an Elizabethan captain with Butler Air Transport in the 1950's and always said he found flying the aircraft a pleasure, he subsequently went onto Convair 240's and hated them.

His memory of the type was a large well functioning cockpit and a very smooth flight characteristics.

Butlers only returned the aircraft to England because they had been taken over by Ansett Airlines and the aircraft didn't fit Reg Ansett's plans, as were the two herons Butler also operated.

Butlers also lost their two Viscounts which were transferred to Ansett mailine.

As an aside my father still has a large original wooden model of the Elizabethan sitting on his television painted in Butler colours.

[Jackonicko]

A decent man who was treated abysmally. The German failure to acknowledge slush as the cause, and the repeated attempts to try and pin the blame on a supposed failure to deice the wings was a cynical disgrace - and no-one did anything to help Thain to rehabillitate his reputation.

I met Ruby Thain a few years ago, and if she's still alive, and any PPRuNer knows her, please pass on my very best wishes. A dignified old girl who did more than BALPA or the UK Government to clear her husband's reputation.

We should remember Ken Rayment and Jimmy Thain as well as the Busby babes, and, who knows, even the eight or so journalists who died in the Ambassador that day.

[Golden Rivit]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_united/article3279019.ece

[Mycroft]

They had built thousands of Consul twin-engined trainers/light transports for the RAF in the war.

The RAF designation was Oxford; the Consul was a post-war civil version, many of which were actually converted Oxfords

[Roy Bouchier]

Landed in Munich on the tenth anniversary and was a bit surprised to find myself being interviewed on TV. I had not realised the significance of the date so I'm not too sure how the interview went!

[GotTheTshirt]

Decca Navigator also had one !

Dan Air lost one when the flap cross shaft sheared allowing one side flaps to retract on landing.
There were some spectacular pictures of this where it scythed across several aircraft.

The engine was a Bristol Centaurus Sleeve valve radial
With Autair the TBO was 2,200 hours compared with 1,400 on the DC3 P&W 1830
3 aircraft operating 2,500 hours a year had 3 unscheduled engine changes in 4 years:)

[rog747]

Dan Air lost one when the flap cross shaft sheared allowing one side flaps to retract on landing.
There were some spectacular pictures of this where it scythed across several aircraft....

it was a BKS a/c on a horse charter in summer 1968 at LHR
it sliced thru 2 BEA tridents and crashed into the britannic building
(now terminal 1)

the f/d crew were killed and the loadmaster i think

[WHBM]

I remember seeing a Dan-Air Ambassador start up at Liverpool airport on the service to Amsterdam they operated in the 1960s, once a day or less for which a dedicated Ambassador was outstationed at Liverpool.

The engines at startup gave off the largest cloud of smoke I have ever seen from an aircraft. It must have been a feature of the Centaurus as someone else from Heathrow once wrote that when an Ambassador started up "it was LVPs for 5 minutes".

Being a radial engine it had the usual problem that when parked a bit of lubricating oil from the crankshaft in the centre of the engine will gradually leak down into the lower cylinders and be burned off on startup, how much dependent on how tight the various components are. But I've never seen one this bad, it must have burned off about a pint of oil per engine. The Centaurus was a sleeve valve engine, which are particularly liable to such problems.

[jabberwok]

Lovely aircraft.

http://homepages.mcb.net/bones/WebAircraft/GAMAH.jpg

http://homepages.mcb.net/bones/WebAircraft/GALZR%20AS57.jpg

[BEagle]

I, ahh, understand that the recovery of one of the Tridents can be seen in the tit le sequence of a movie entitled, err, "Au Pair Girls*"....

Not that I could confirm that, you understand!

















* which features Gabrielle Drake...........oooh, yes! Mmmmm....

[Soddit]

Does anyone have a link to the 1969 Report which I seem to recall had as its title ''xxxxxxx and to consider whether blame should be imputed to Captain Thain''. Yes, I have searched.

[treadigraph]

Can you get it on DVD BEags? Purley research for a Trident archive you understand...

Re the smokey Centaurus, the RNHF Sea Fury certainly belched out lots of smoke during start up at Duxford last July - can't say whether that's normal for a Centaurus though, but I should imagine it is.

[BEagle]

treadigraph, my research indicates that the title is indeed available on DVD.....

Purely in the interest of science, were one to type 'Au Pair Girls' into the search function of a well-known 'Big River / woman with spear' website, one might be able to confirm such research results.

Or so I'm led to understand.

[norwich]

For all of those who, like me, enjoy this aircraft, despite these sad memories, I invite you to see my photos of the last remaining example being rebuilt at Duxford ......

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii58/keithnewsome/duxford/th_DSC_0119.jpg (http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii58/keithnewsome/duxford/DSC_0119.jpg)


http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii58/keithnewsome/duxford/th_DSC_0120.jpg (http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii58/keithnewsome/duxford/DSC_0120.jpg)

[treadigraph]

Norwich thanks for the pics of Duxford's Ambassador - I think I'm right in saying that it has progressed considerably since those pics were taken and is a serious credit to both the DAS volunteers who have been working so hard to restore her, and Dan-Air (all kneel) for preserving her in the first place... Stars.

BEags, thanks, I see Johnny "Coronation Street" Briggs starred - or so I understand. More research required... Purely Purley...

[KeMac]

One of the two Tridents that the BKS Ambassador sliced into was G-ARPI - an unlucky aircraft.

[BEagle]

Great to see the Dan Air (all hail) example under restoration!

Treadders, the last time I saw Coronation Street was in about 1962. On grainy old Band 3 405-line black and white ITV. So I've no idea who this Briggs person is.

Presumably Ena Sharples is no longer drinking 'milk stout' in 'The Snug' of the 'Rovers Return'?

[Airclues]

60 years ago today Airspeed Ambassador G-ALZU operating flight 609 crashed on take-off at Munich. 23 people were killed including several members of the Manchester United football team.

[Herod]

And the industry learnt a lot about contaminated runways as a result.

[chevvron]

And ATCOs were taught to make a clear distinction between 'snow' and 'slush' when reporting runway contamination.

[Airclues]

62 years ago today.

[norwich]

Very sad day, I was ten years old … but my overwhelming memory of the day was … it was the first time I ever saw my mother crying !

[Maximiliaan]

Very sad day, I was ten years old … but my overwhelming memory of the day was … it was the first time I ever saw my mother crying !

I actually have aerial images of that crash. Will scan and post soon.

[capricorn23]

Hi all,
watching the video program "Air Disaster" on National Geo channel, I came across this Title story.
Even if I remembered that accident, I didn't know many details of it, and I was impressed by the Captain Thain fight against the enquire commission which put the entire blame on him.
He made a lot of researches on the probable causes of his accident and discovered that about ten years earlier there was a similar accident (with no casualties) in Vancouver, Canada. It was a North Star airliner operated by Trans Canada Airlines which overshoot the runway "due to slush" on it, as found by the Canadian Commission later.
This was the initial source, ever, for this phenomenon.
I made a lot of researches for that commission's report, just for historical knowledge on this matter, but I didn't success at all.
​​​My question now: has anybody any reference to that document?
Thank you all in advance.

[blind pew]

Don't have one BUT BEA had two accident reports involving slush which they sat on prior to the Munich disaster, the second was a Dutch one iirc. Replicated with the Trident at Staines (premature droop retraction due to pilot error and the " unique" SOP).
I seem to remember that it was in one of the German reports (in German).
Have just googled Cap 153 G-ALZU but have only come up with the translated first German report..could not see any reference to the Canadian and Dutch accidents but there is a directive from the regulator dated 1947.
It is a fact that BA in the 80s could operate into Zurich when it was closed to Swissair due contamination.
You might find something in the flight global archives.
Another coincidence was that Stan Key of papa india was the union rep at the inquiry.

[Herod]

Not sure what the Trident at Staines has to do with this. AFAIK, runway contamination was not a factor. It occurred in June.

[WHBM]

Not sure what the Trident at Staines has to do with this. Very indirectly, 'PI was one of the two Tridents which had the tail scythed off by the crashing BKS Ambassador at Heathrow. Unlike the other one, it was repaired in a major job. Between that and Staines it was in a Heathrow hangar having a check when a Comet on engine test close outside had the wrong chocks applied, overrode them, and lunged forward bringing the hangar doors down on the tail. Repaired again, an extraordinarily unlucky aircraft. I believe in the first days after Staines there was much checking of records to see if a mechanical failure from the repairs might have happened.

[DaveReidUK]

Very indirectly, 'PI was one of the two Tridents which had the tail scythed off by the crashing BKS Ambassador at Heathrow. Unlike the other one, it was repaired in a major job. Between that and Staines it was in a Heathrow hangar having a check when a Comet on engine test close outside had the wrong chocks applied, overrode them, and lunged forward bringing the hangar doors down on the tail. Repaired again, an extraordinarily unlucky aircraft.

All true, but it's still not immediately obvious what the connection is between Papa India and the Munich disaster, unless it's just a case of sitting on reports about precursor incidents. Incidentally, in my BEA/BA days, I shared an office briefly with the chap who had been Station Engineer at MUC at the time.

I believe in the first days after Staines there was much checking of records to see if a mechanical failure from the repairs might have happened.

It's a standard procedure in any airline to check when any maintenance last occurred on an accident aircraft. I remember being at work when the news came in about the Erebus ANZ DC-10 (which BA did the engineering for at LHR) and the understandable relief when it was established that we hadn't had any involvement with that particular aircraft for some weeks.

[blind pew]

In both accidents BEA management sat on previous occurrence reports. If they had been circulated and the pilots concerned learnt from them the accidents might not have happened.
Stan Key was sent to Coventry by a few of his colleagues for not persevering in getting Jimmy Thain reinstated. From what I witnessed of his behaviour the day before the Staines accident he was a very unhappy man.
PH, our union rep, on Tridents at the time posed his theory that as long as we had only one aircraft loss a year then managers were happy. From November 71 till I left to the VC10 6 years later our group lost eight aircraft.

[capricorn23]

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/940x2000/screenshot_20200615_151902_whatsapp_344fb4ddb60dccd6904f2039 0ecfa9962215c397.jpg
Hi everybody ,
Thank you very much for the interesting inputs you all provided so far.
I (try to) attach a picture of the telegram (taken from the video) relevant to the Tran Canadian Airlines incident, just as a further reference.
Thank you all again.