Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 9, 2022 0:01:17 GMT 12
From The Press, 10 April 1968...
N.Z. Pilot’s Skill Saves 121
(N.Z P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)
LONDON, April 9.
Civil aviation experts today praised the New Zealand pilot whose courage and skill saved 121 lives when he safely landed a blazing, Auckland-bound jet airliner at London Airport last night. Five of the 126 passengers and crew died when the plane, a British Overseas Aircraft Corporation Boeing 707, made a forced landing after an engine had burst into flames just after take-off.
The pilot, Captain Charles Taylor, aged 47, who was formerly in the Royal Air Force, turned the 150-ton aircraft back towards the airport and, although the blazing engine broke away, brought it in for a text-book landing, its port wing ablaze.
Sir Miles Thomas, former chairman of B.O.A.C., described the landing as “a brilliant example of airmanship at its best.” And Captain E. Miles, flight manager of B.O.A.C.’s fleet of 707s said: “It was a marvellous job.”
Survivors of the four-minute flight scrambled for safety through escape hatches as the airliner burst into flames. Today it is a charred wreck on the tarmac.
A strange set of coincidences faces experts investigating the accident, for the same aircraft had been in a similar drama only five months ago, in Honolulu. Yesterday’s was to have been the plane’s first passenger flight back in service. B.O.A.C. spokesmen said it had been completely overhauled and performed perfectly on its first test flight on Sunday. The circumstances yesterday were similar to those when the six-year-old airliner crashed last November—an engine caught fire as the plane was about to become airborne. But in Honolulu it was the starboard outer engine. This time it was the port inner engine which caught fire as the plane set off from London Airport on its way to Sydney and Auckland.
Names Of Dead
Among those known to have died were:—
Jacqueline Cooper, aged 9, whose parents were emigrating to Perth, Australia.
Mary Smith, a married woman, whose two brothers live in Australia.
Catherine Shearer, aged 24, whose mother, Mrs D. Shearer, of Glenelg North, South Australia, was among the injured passengers.
Barbara Harrison, of Bradford, England, a member of the crew.
The name of the fifth victim, a man, is not yet available.
Twenty-two persons were injured in the crash, but only five so seriously that they were detained in hospital. None was a New Zealander. Many of the passengers were Britons emigrating to Australia and New Zealand. Some of them gave vivid descriptions of the crash.
Said one woman: “We had got a nice little way up off the ground when I saw a long yellow flame like a blow torch coming from one engine. Soon it was like looking into a blast furnace.”
Another woman, Miss Helena Taylor, said: “A steward came up the aisle and told us we would have to make an emergency landing. Not a soul panicked. There was a girl beside me really terrified, but she kept herself under control.”
Mrs Shirley Cooper said: “My son was being trampled on by people trying to get out of the plane. I fought them off and picked him up and threw him out of the side of the plane, where it had been ripped open. Then I got out myself, somehow.”
Friends and relatives of the air travellers watched, horrified, from the observation towers as firemen tried in vain to blanket the flames with foam.
Captain Taylor, who was educated in Auckland and Hamilton, joined B.O.A.C. in 1947. During World War II he joined the Royal Air Force as a Dominion entry apprentice and became a Coastal Command pilot, in 1954 he commanded an aircraft which flew the Queen and Prince Philip from Aden and Tobruk during a Royal tour. He escaped injury in the crash.
N.Z. Pilot’s Skill Saves 121
(N.Z P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)
LONDON, April 9.
Civil aviation experts today praised the New Zealand pilot whose courage and skill saved 121 lives when he safely landed a blazing, Auckland-bound jet airliner at London Airport last night. Five of the 126 passengers and crew died when the plane, a British Overseas Aircraft Corporation Boeing 707, made a forced landing after an engine had burst into flames just after take-off.
The pilot, Captain Charles Taylor, aged 47, who was formerly in the Royal Air Force, turned the 150-ton aircraft back towards the airport and, although the blazing engine broke away, brought it in for a text-book landing, its port wing ablaze.
Sir Miles Thomas, former chairman of B.O.A.C., described the landing as “a brilliant example of airmanship at its best.” And Captain E. Miles, flight manager of B.O.A.C.’s fleet of 707s said: “It was a marvellous job.”
Survivors of the four-minute flight scrambled for safety through escape hatches as the airliner burst into flames. Today it is a charred wreck on the tarmac.
A strange set of coincidences faces experts investigating the accident, for the same aircraft had been in a similar drama only five months ago, in Honolulu. Yesterday’s was to have been the plane’s first passenger flight back in service. B.O.A.C. spokesmen said it had been completely overhauled and performed perfectly on its first test flight on Sunday. The circumstances yesterday were similar to those when the six-year-old airliner crashed last November—an engine caught fire as the plane was about to become airborne. But in Honolulu it was the starboard outer engine. This time it was the port inner engine which caught fire as the plane set off from London Airport on its way to Sydney and Auckland.
Names Of Dead
Among those known to have died were:—
Jacqueline Cooper, aged 9, whose parents were emigrating to Perth, Australia.
Mary Smith, a married woman, whose two brothers live in Australia.
Catherine Shearer, aged 24, whose mother, Mrs D. Shearer, of Glenelg North, South Australia, was among the injured passengers.
Barbara Harrison, of Bradford, England, a member of the crew.
The name of the fifth victim, a man, is not yet available.
Twenty-two persons were injured in the crash, but only five so seriously that they were detained in hospital. None was a New Zealander. Many of the passengers were Britons emigrating to Australia and New Zealand. Some of them gave vivid descriptions of the crash.
Said one woman: “We had got a nice little way up off the ground when I saw a long yellow flame like a blow torch coming from one engine. Soon it was like looking into a blast furnace.”
Another woman, Miss Helena Taylor, said: “A steward came up the aisle and told us we would have to make an emergency landing. Not a soul panicked. There was a girl beside me really terrified, but she kept herself under control.”
Mrs Shirley Cooper said: “My son was being trampled on by people trying to get out of the plane. I fought them off and picked him up and threw him out of the side of the plane, where it had been ripped open. Then I got out myself, somehow.”
Friends and relatives of the air travellers watched, horrified, from the observation towers as firemen tried in vain to blanket the flames with foam.
Captain Taylor, who was educated in Auckland and Hamilton, joined B.O.A.C. in 1947. During World War II he joined the Royal Air Force as a Dominion entry apprentice and became a Coastal Command pilot, in 1954 he commanded an aircraft which flew the Queen and Prince Philip from Aden and Tobruk during a Royal tour. He escaped injury in the crash.
