There were 29 passengers from the United States, 29 Belgians, 12 Irish, four South African, three Canadian, one Thai, two Jamaicans, one Latin American, one Indian, one French Afrique, and one Nigerian. Filed in General News, News about Airports, Recent News. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, Middlesex, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. between employees of British European Coastal Beverage Ltd. Is a family owned distributor of Anheuser-Busch, Constellation and a diverse variety of craft beer products, Wine, Tea & Seltzer. The strike had also disrupted services, causing Flight 548 to be loaded with the maximum weight allowable. the strike was Stanley Key, a highly Cathay Pacific used a Convair CV-880 aircraft that crashed on the afternoon of 15 June 1972. wa. with the recent strife between . It was widely believed by BEA pilots The flight entered a deep stall shortly after takeoff, and is the worst air accident in the history of the United Kingdom. Give Us a Call 239-643-4343 A third stick push followed 127 seconds into the flight but no recovery was attempted. It also cited the captain's heart condition and the limited experience of the co-pilot, while noting an unspecified \"technical problem\" that the crew apparently resolved before take-off. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near the town of Staines, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. [47] A young girl was also found alive but died at the scene; there were no other survivors. This system [26], An accident affecting G-ARPI had occurred on 3 July 1968. [23], Investigations into the event found no mechanical malfunction that could have caused the premature leading-edge device retraction, and stated that the aircraft had "just about managed to stay flying". London Heathrow preparing for a flight Until last night, the worst air disaster in Britain was in March, 1950, when an Avro Tudor crashed in Glamorgan, killing 80 passengers and crew. Heathrow aircraft control sounded the full-scale disaster alert, and all airport emergency appliances, together with all available fire engines, ambulances, and police patrol cars for eight miles around sped to the scene. The crew failed to recognise the reasons for the stall warnings and stall recovery system operation. At 16:10:47 (137 seconds) and 1,000 feet (305m), the Trident was descending at 4,500 feet per minute (23m/s). As of 2022[update], it remains the deadliest air accident (as opposed to terrorist incidents) in the United Kingdom and was the deadliest air accident involving a Hawker Siddeley Trident. [55] In such inquiries, AIB inspectors were on an equal footing with all other parties, and the ultimate reports were not drafted by them, but by the Commissioner and his or her Assessors. procedure, requiring stress EKGs rather Support was expected, but the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA) organised a postal ballot to ask members at BEA whether they wanted to strike. Kian's goal is to provide the best news articles for the readers of UK Aviation News, as well as expanding his own knowledge on the industry. caused by lack of airspeed causing a The accident became known as the Staines air disaster. This configuration of high-lift devices at a low airspeed would have resulted in a deep stall, but the co-pilot noticed the error, increased airspeed and re-extended the droops, and the flight continued normally. The accident became known as the Staines air disaster and remains the deadliest air accident . The aircraft was at an We are proud of our Products, Facility and Our People! This standard instrument departure involved taking-off to the west over the instrument landing system localiser and middle marker beacon of the reciprocal Runway 10 Left, turning left to intercept the 145 bearing to the Epsom non-directional beacon (NDB) (to be passed at 3,000 feet (910m) or more), and then proceeding to Dover. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? It has been just over 48 years since the crash of British European Airways Flight 548 which devastatingly cost the lives of all 118 people on board a BEA Hawker Siddeley Trident. system. The low flying-experience level of Second Officer Keighley. During taxi, at 16:06 the flight received its departure route clearance: a routing known as the "Dover One Standard Instrument Departure". There was little evidence of any forward movement; in fact, the complete aircraft looked intact though distorted and broken, mainly the fuselage. According to an Accidents and Investigations Branch pathologist, Key may have suffered some form of a heart attack anytime during the flight. Random checks carried out by the airline after the accident showed that this was not the case; 21 captains stated that they had witnessed their co-pilots react correctly to any stall warnings. Genghis the Engineer. You could have reached up and touched it.. was allowed to get too slow in an control yoke forward, breaking the The accident became known as the Staines air disaster. Wikipedia's entry on the crash states: British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels on 18 June 1972 which crashed soon after take-off, killing all 118 people on board.The accident became known as the Staines disaster and remained the deadliest air disaster in Britain until the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over. They can withstand up to 3,400 Gs and temperatures of 1,100C. struck the ground, causing total flaps, at which time airspeed bled off google_ad_height = 600; In this accident, the crew had deliberately switched off the stick shaker and stick pusher as required by the stall test schedule, and the probable cause was determined to be the crew's failure to take timely positive recovery action to counter an impending stall. Observers also pointed to an unduly-favourable disposition by the inquiry to Hawker Siddeley, manufacturer of the Trident, and to the makers of the aircraft's systems. re-extended the droops. The aircraft was built in 1959 with a serial number of 706. [45], At 16:10:43 (133 seconds), the Trident entered a deep stall. Exclusive for Podcrashers: On February 15, 1961, Sabena Flight 548 was carrying a plane full of travelers across the Atlantic Ocean. By 5.06pm, it had crashed. Clearance to taxi was given at 16:03. If corrective action Since the crew did not initially detect anything amiss, they disabled the automatic system. abatement procedure which involved Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. Pilots were nearing a strike, watching when the droops were retracted. There were no survivors when the plane crashed, less than four minutes after taking off for Brussels. behind Key. The flight deck of a BEA Trident. Despite all One of the pilots who google_ad_height = 60; out any discrepancies to the captain, One man was taken out of the wreckage with head injuries but died in hospital. [19] The Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP), an experimental, voluntary, anonymous and informal system of reporting hazardous air events introduced within BEA in the late 1960s (and later adopted by the Civil Aviation Authority and NASA), brought to light two near-accidents, the "Orly" and "Naples" incidents: these involved flight crew error in the first case and suspicion of the Trident's control layout in the second case. unprofessional. Particularly opposed to [77][78], The accident led to a much greater emphasis on crew resource management training, a system of flight deck safety awareness that remains in use today. stick-pusher or crew intervention, the Two hours after the crash, all roads in the area were jammed by traffic. [48] Altogether, 30 ambulances and 25 fire engines attended the accident. The plane just fell out of the sky. distracted the crew from flying the [42], At 16:10:24 (114 seconds), the leading-edge devices were selected to be retracted at a height above the ground of 1,770 feet (540m) and a speed of 162 knots (300km/h; 186mph),[43] 63 knots (117km/h; 72mph) below the safe droop flap retraction speed of 225 knots (417km/h; 259mph). It is believed that many factors played a part in the crash of Flight 548, such as the crew failing to maintain the appropriate airspeed and flaps being retracted prematurely, however, there are also some underlying problems that may have been the cause of the accident. (FDR). dh. February 17, 2022 Summary: On June 18, 1972, just a day before a planned strike in response to working conditions, the flight crew of British European Airways (BEA) Flight 548 found themselves facing a surprising emergency just minutes after takeoff. were in favour of the action. had witnessed Key's outburst earlier and The presence of Captain Collins on the flight deck might have been a distraction. Captain Key was 51 and had 15,000 flying hours experience, including 4,000 on Tridents. The aircraft suffered a deep stall shortly after takeoff, eventually coming down just south of the busy A30 road, a short distance from the town of Staines-upon-Thames. It had taken place "not more than two hours before the death and not less than about a minute" according to the pathologist's opinion given as evidence during the public inquiry. In addition, their status led to a regular anomaly: experienced SFO/P3s could only assist while less-experienced co-pilots actually flew the aircraft. minute later, the Trident emerged from Trident second officer, he was fully London Heathrow, BEA had a noise Thirty-four Britons were killed in the crash, including the crew. The aircraft suffered a deep stall and crashed, just missing the main road three minutes into the flight. [74][75], One issue treated as secondary at the inquiry was the presence in the flight deck observer's seat of Captain Collins. Apparent crew unawareness regarding the effects of an aircraft configuration change. That Captain Key was suffering from a heart condition. [40] Public inquiries bypassed the usual British practice whereby the Accidents Investigation Branch (AIB) investigated and reported on air crashes, and were held only in cases of acute public interest. The event became known as the "Paris Incident" or the "Orly Incident" among BEA staff. The [15], These systems were the subject of a comprehensive stall programme, involving some 3,500 stalls being performed by Hawker Siddeley before the matter was considered resolved by the Air Registration Board. crew, when encountering the system Key advised the tower that he was ready for take-off and was cleared to do so. [76], There were protests at the conduct of the inquiry by BALPA (which likened it to "a lawyers' picnic"), and by the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators which condemned the rules of evidence adopted and the adversarial nature of the proceedings. It was delivered to BEA in 1961. google_ad_type = "text"; [44], By 16:10:32 (122 seconds), the leading-edge devices had stowed fully into the wing. knew of his temper. The Lane report recommended greater caution in allowing off-duty flight crew members to occupy flight deck seats, and aired speculation that Collins might have been distracting his colleagues. activation twice within several seconds, If its airspeed was insufficient, and particularly if its high-lift devices were not extended at the low speeds typical of climbing away after take-off or of approaching to land, it could enter a deep stall (or "superstall") condition, in which the tail control surfaces become ineffective (as they are in the turbulence zone of the stalled main wing) from which recovery was practically impossible. Tricehurst flew in the third seat behind Although two bodies were retrieved almost immediately, the presence of hostile . The passengers included between 25 and 30 women and several children.[33]. [nb 1] The graffiti on Papa India's flight engineers' desk was analysed by a handwriting expert to identify who had written it, but this could not be determined. Though physically caused the control yoke to On Sunday, 18 June 1972, the British European Airways (BEA) Trident 1C departed from London, England for scheduled air service to Brussels, Belgium, but . The aircraft involved in the crash was a Vickers Vanguard type 951, registered in United Kingdom as G-APEC. uncovered some clues as to what may have The first is a stained-glass window in St Mary's Church where an annual memorial service is held on 18 June. The Tridents tail was torn off. [citation needed] [31] [32], Among the passengers were 29 Americans, 29 Belgians, 28 Britons, 12 Irish, four South Africans and three Canadians. At aircraft rapidly pitched up in excess of On 14 July, the High Court Judge Sir Geoffrey Lane was appointed to preside over the inquiry as Commissioner. They were also responsible for alerting A cross wind was blowing from 210 at 17 knots (31km/h; 20mph). distraction, inadvertently retracted The only question which remained A few hours before the flight, Captain Key was involved in an extremely heated debate with one of his BEA colleagues in the crew room about pilot strikes which were brewing at the time. pilots felt the action was retraction below minimum droop speed. Autopsies preformed on the flight crew uncovered some clues as to what may have happened on the flightdeck of 548. 112 passengers. believed that Key, in his pain and than resting EKGs. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, Surrey, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. In June 1972 a BEA Trident aircraft took off from Heathrow, and crashed two minutes later into a field close to Staines. there was a slight rainfall from the acknowledged by Key. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near the town of Staines, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. Recommendations from the inquiry led to the mandatory installation ofcockpit voice recordersin British-registered airliners. normally and began a southerly turn just the two pilots. The dispute was controversial, those in favour being mainly younger pilots, and those against mostly older. Miss Christine Wallis said she was walking past the reservoir with friends when bits of metal began flying around us the plane split up as it tore along the ground.. Media in category "British European Airways Flight 548" This category contains only the following file. 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