Kegworth / East Midlands plane crash - 25 years ago

[beast66606]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-25548016

 

 

A remarkable survival story and led to a lot of improvements in air safety.

 

RIP The 47 victims.

[Legend]

Thanks for posting. It was a bad time if I remember. Hadn't we just had Clapham, then Lockerbie and finally Kegworth ? Lots of people lost their lives. We should remember them and be thankful for our own lives. It does rather put things in perspective.

[Andy Y]

RIP; I thought back 25 years when I drove by yesterday.

[Happy Hippo]

When I was based at Loughborough (Garats Hay) with 241 Sig Sqn back in the late '70s.  We regularly used to carry out MACP (Military Aid to Civil Powers) exercises, and East Midlands airport was the usual destination.

 

So there was an emergency plan in place prior to the event.

 

But however much you exercise and plan, there is a terrific difference between exercising and for real

[Mike Bellamy]

I know exactly where I was 25 years ago tonight - in a pub called the Every Arms on the A38 between Derby and Burton with Phil Traxson (it's now an Indian restaurant)

 

The local Burnaston Airfield was just up the road (now the site of the Toyota factory) and some people from there came in the pub that night and said they had heard about it on their radio.

 

Local newspaper report about the lasting legacy which was the development of the 'brace' position http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Thousands-lives-saved-legacy-Kegworth-air/story-20410610-detail/story.html

 

Other reports from people who were there that night helping the survivors and dealing with those who lost their lives.

 

News reporter who did not do any reporting that night http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Young-journalist-pressed-rescue-action-Kegworth/story-20410635-detail/story.html

 

Two young policemen now both senior officers http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Police-pair-recall-life-saving-efforts-Kegworth/story-20410623-detail/story.html

[andyram]

I remember sitting at home as a teenager and hearing an unexplained bang or rumble in the distance. When you see the pictures on tv again today it is heartbreaking to see just how close the heroic pilot came to reaching the runway. I am sure all residents of Kegworth owe the pilot a great debt of thanks for missing the village and saving an even bigger catastrophe.

 

RIP all of the 47 victims.

 

The East Midlands will never forget!

[Happy Hippo]

Sadly this was an accident that need not have happened.  See:

 

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/formal_reports/4_1990_g_obme.cfm

 

In summary,  a blade on the No 1 engine broke, but the crew closed down the No 2 engine in error.

[Fat Controller]

Sadly this was an accident that need not have happened.  See:

 

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/formal_reports/4_1990_g_obme.cfm

 

In summary,  a blade on the No 1 engine broke, but the crew closed down the No 2 engine in error.

The cabin crew had been alerted to the problem engine by a passenger, but were ignored by the captain, IIRC. There were also alarms indicating the problem engine, which the co-pilot brought to the captain's attention. It's an accident that crops up quite often in courses about such things, along with another involving a collision between two taxi-ing aircraft at Las Palmas; in both cases, it wasn't technical problems which caused the fatalities, but crews deferring to autocratic captains. Subsequently, the airline industry, and others (chemical plants, for example) have spent a lot of time and money training people to avoid such accidents in the future.

[Douglas G]

Looking out of our bedroom window we see planes on the final approach to East Midlands Airport.

 

Watching them it has always struck me how close the plane was to landing on houses in Kegworth or on the University of Nottingham Sutton Bonington Campus, where the planes fly directly over at quite a low height, especially when the wind strength is low.

 

I have an idea that I heard somewhere that the plane did hit a chimney on a house in Kegworth as it came in.

 

Douglas

[Pacific231G]

I remember sitting at home as a teenager and hearing an unexplained bang or rumble in the distance. When you see the pictures on tv again today it is heartbreaking to see just how close the heroic pilot came to reaching the runway. I am sure all residents of Kegworth owe the pilot a great debt of thanks for missing the village and saving an even bigger catastrophe.

 

RIP all of the 47 victims.

 

The East Midlands will never forget!

Sorry Andy but I'm not terribly sure what you think Captain Hunt did that was heroic. He and his First Officer made an error in shutting down the no 2 engine following a problem with the left hand no 1 engine and failed to become aware of their error. They then experienced a total loss of power from the damaged engine when more power was required from it during the approach. The flight crew obviously tried to reach the runway they were on final approach to but didn't have sufficient power to do so. That late in the approach there would be no question of steering the aircraft away from inhabited areas and reaching the runway would be their sole concern. Sadly they failed to do so by a matter of just a few hundred metres and you have to feel sympathy for anyone having to live with that. 

 

The AAIB report on the accident was very critical of several errors made by the flight crew and both were dismissed by BM, arguably unfairly given that weaknesses in training were also identified.  the FO later reached an out of court settlement with BM for unfair dismissal and Captain Hunt certainly felt that they had been made scapegoats.

While I would not condemn the crew who were dealing with a stressful situation with a high workload over a fairly short time period I certainly wouldn't describe them as heroes.

 

IMHO there was one particular hero that evening and that was Graham Pearson the former Royal Marine who happened to be driving past and who risked his own life going aboard the crashed aircraft to assist the survivors and probably saving more than one life in the process. This was at considerable  cost to himself in terms of severe PTSD that affected his life for years afterwards.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I used to live off Shardlow Road and can sill remember the ambulance sirens that evening as they took the injured from the crash to the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary.

[andyram]

Sorry Andy but I'm not terribly sure what you think Captain Hunt did that was heroic. He and his First Officer made an error in shutting down the no 2 engine following a problem with the left hand no 1 engine and failed to become aware of their error. They then experienced a total loss of power from the damaged engine when more power was required from it during the approach. The flight crew obviously tried to reach the runway they were on final approach to but didn't have sufficient power to do so. That late in the approach there would be no question of steering the aircraft away from inhabited areas and reaching the runway would be their sole concern. Sadly they failed to do so by a matter of just a few hundred metres and you have to feel sympathy for anyone having to live with that. 

 

The AAIB report on the accident was very critical of several errors made by the flight crew and both were dismissed by BM, arguably unfairly () given that weaknesses in training were also identified.  the FO later reached an out of court settlement with BM for unfair dismissal and Captain Hunt certainly felt that they had been made scapegoats.

While I would not condemn the crew who were dealing with a stressful situation with a high workload over a fairly short time period I certainly wouldn't describe them as heroes.

 

IMHO there was one particular hero that evening and that was Graham Pearson the former Royal Marine who happened to be driving past and who risked his own life going aboard the crashed aircraft to assist the survivors and probably saving more than one life in the process. This was at considerable  cost to himself in terms of severe PTSD that affected his life for years afterwards.

 

Perhaps time has diminished my memories of the incident somewhat. I do have a recollection of the pilot being praised for avoiding Kegworth but the rest of it seems to have vanished from my memory in the mists of time. At the end of the day however this post is not about reopening blame, but to remember those innocent people who lost their lives.

 

I repeat

 

RIP the 47.

[Kenton]

 

But however much you exercise and plan, there is a terrific difference between exercising and for real

But having a coherent plan and exercising it to the point of familiarity makes the reality a manageable process. So I would never describe it as a terrific difference. Think the unthinkable, plan for it and survive.

[The Stationmaster]

  But having a coherent plan and exercising it to the point of familiarity makes the reality a manageable process. So I would never describe it as a terrific difference. Think the unthinkable, plan for it and survive.

 

Ideally yes, and the first thing that any plan should take account of is the fact that in reality things can and will change quickly.  But planning has to be realistic and I have come across folk, even in the emergency services, who are sometimes not prepared to accept that realism and definitely not prepared to pay for its mitigation.  

 

A good few years back I acted as an assessor on on eparticular tabletop style exercise which had been organised by a local authority emergency planning team and I pointed that both they and one of the emergency services were making totally unrealistic assumptions about timescales and the rate of clearing people (ambulant or injured) from the assumed site.  My observations were dismissed on the basis of 'it wouldn't be like that in real life' and 'you're being too cautious' although one emergency service agreed exactly with certain of the times I was quoting.  I explained how things could be changed to reduce timescales and no one was prepared to pay - we (the railway) had already carried out some investment which one emergency service and the local authority thought was not enough but we had a budget and that was it - they were offered certain things but refused to pay for what they were demanding.

 

Some years later exactly the incident which had been exercised happened - everybody's plans were perfect and thoroughly up-to-date but not only was there a communications mess up which caused a delay but all the timescales I had forecast at the table top job came out almost exactly, and far longer than one emergency service expected but exactly as another had forecast.  

 

In other words it's no good saying something about a disaster reaction and handling it unless you listen to other people and what they think will happen.  Lots of changes were made after the incident but in fact the initial delay I forecast would be no different if the same incident happened tomorrow (I hope it doesn't of course) - injecting little political games and ohs and ahs into emergency planning is not the way to do things.

[Kickstart]

Hi

 

I remember that evening, and lived in Nottingham at the time. I passed my bike test a couple of days earlier but that night was the first time I had my own bike running and almost went to have my first run down a motorway on the M1. Decided against it and went to see a friend who lived in The Park. While chatting we wondered what all the sirens were for; checked Ceefax and found out about the crash.

 

All the best

 

Keith

[Pacific231G]

Perhaps time has diminished my memories of the incident somewhat. I do have a recollection of the pilot being praised for avoiding Kegworth but the rest of it seems to have vanished from my memory in the mists of time. At the end of the day however this post is not about reopening blame, but to remember those innocent people who lost their lives.

 

I repeat

 

RIP the 47.

No argument with that Andy.

Your recollection of the praise is probably right. The press always wants the heroic pilot steering the stricken plane away from houses, school etc. at the cost of his own life and onlookers often think that#s what they've seen but it usually just doesn't happen that way.

[Edwin_m]

I remember that evening, and lived in Nottingham at the time. I passed my bike test a couple of days earlier but that night was the first time I had my own bike running and almost went to have my first run down a motorway on the M1. Decided against it and went to see a friend who lived in The Park. While chatting we wondered what all the sirens were for; checked Ceefax and found out about the crash.

I would have been about half a mile away and also remember the sirens. 

 

i was reading the AAIB report last night and there was an element of the captain dictating what should be done, but I think much less than in other accidents such as the KAL cargo 747 that went down at Stansted due to incorrect crew response to a faulty gyro.  There was a big element of luck, in particular that the vibration from the bad engine happened to settle down at exactly the same time as they throttled down the good one. 

[Kenton]

 

Ideally yes, and the first thing that any plan should take account of is the fact that in reality things can and will change quickly.

The importance of practice. A table-top scenario just cannot take account of the unfortunate elements (humans) who are frequently unpredictable or unreliable. Finance and politics do interfere, along with emotions and collateral events, but at least imagining 'what-if' does give the best chance of a "better" outcome. I am certain that if the pilot in this case had exercised a similar scenario before the actual event the outcome would have been better. The loss of valuable seconds to the surprise of the situation and thinking through actions in the pressure of the situation may have resulted in the wrong engine not being shut down or the damaged engine not being over-powered giving a vital extra second or two of flight.

 

Of course others may say that this was the ultimate in practice. That the lives saved since (incalculable) by the measures learned and applied would not have been if there had not been this crash in the first place. Much of human learning is from experience.

[Edwin_m]

Having said that, the AAIB report makes the point that the crew shut down what turned out to be the good engine unnecessarily - if they'd left it idling it would have been possible to throttle it up once the problem turned out to be the other one, whereas there wasn't time to start it from shutdown.  One possible reason given was that the engine failure drills on the simulator normally involved shutting it down. 

[polybear]

Many of the dead & seriously injured suffered severe head injuries - I've seen post-accident photos of the aircraft's interior, showing bloody great v-notches in the seat headrests where overhead lockers came done.  Yet every time I go on an aircraft I see people struggling to get their (far too heavy) bags up into the overhead lockers.  Along with bottles of inflammable Spirits from Duty Free.  Will the Airlines (and passengers) never learn??

 

polybear

[Ian Hargrave]

Looking out of our bedroom window we see planes on the final approach to East Midlands Airport.

 

Watching them it has always struck me how close the plane was to landing on houses in Kegworth or on the University of Nottingham Sutton Bonington Campus, where the planes fly directly over at quite a low height, especially when the wind strength is low.

 

I have an idea that I heard somewhere that the plane did hit a chimney on a house in Kegworth as it came in.

 Thank you for that unnerving anecdote....We live on the western incoming flight path .Especially during the summer months,there is a stream of taxi--rank flights turning on final approach into EMA ,aircraft cabin lights and headlights ablaze.Ours is,arguably,the highest inhabited building east of the Trent.I leave the rest to your imagination but consider if you will the novel experience of critically examining the stripes made by your own lawn mower as you fly in courtesy of Ryanair three minutes before touchdown.

Yes,I do remember the disaster.I can remember the comments made about the captain of the aircraft by the cartoonist Bill Tidy ,then a resident of Kegworth...'That pilot...he was a b...... hero!'.Tragically,things did not work out like that.

We frequently pass the spot ...near the A42/M1 junction....invariably,there's an incoming low over the motorway.I never forget.Tomorrow,we'll drive past again on our way North.Is it really 25 years ?

Douglas

[Edwin_m]

The cabin crew didn't wish to disturb the flight crew at a difficult time so didn't alert them to the engine fire.  Nor did the cabin crew apparently hear the captain's announcement refer to a problem with the right (wrong) engine and although some passengers heard this they didn't do anything about it, probably assuming the crew would already have full information. 

 

The co-pilot called the fault in the right engine when asked, having almost said "left", but the change of mind wasn't the result of pressure from the captain.  The only example of possible autocracy I can recall, based on reading the report last night, was the captain telling the co-pilot to shut down the right engine when (with hindsight at least) it would have been wiser to leave it running. Conceivably the co-pilot might have challenged this. 

[andyram]

25 years on is it really correct to be arguing over who was at fault. At the end of the day it was a tragic accident and 47 people lost their lives. We should remember that and respect their memory!

[Pacific231G]

25 years on is it really correct to be arguing over who was at fault. At the end of the day it was a tragic accident and 47 people lost their lives. We should remember that and respect their memory!

I read the AAIB report on Kegworth years ago but I've now re read it and though the crew made mistakes I agree that they were as much the victim of a chain of circumstances.

 

The important thing is to learn the lessons from this and other accidents and to keep learning them. That's what made the railways so safe and has made air transport almost equally safe but "human beings should never make mistakes" is not one of those lessons.

Seeing passengers cramming everything into hand baggage because hold baggage is penalised by the low cost carriers seems like one lesson from Kegworth that has been forgotten. Several of the fatalities there seem to have been due to head injuries caused by baggage.

[MarkC]

IIRC the demise of the 'autocratic captain' era commenced in ernest after the BEA Trident crash at Staines.