Forgotten tragedy – 60 years on from air disaster News
TODAY MARKS 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF ONE OF CITY’S WORST AIR TRAGEDIES
IT’S one of the city’s worst air tragedies and one which changed dozens of families lives forever.
On March 14, 1957 – 60 years ago today – an airliner crashed short of the Manchester Airport runway, smashing into a house in nearby Wythenshawe.
The crash killed all 20 people on board the plane, and two people in the house – tragically, the wife and baby son of a man who had campaigned about the dangers of low-flying aircraft in the area.
It was 1.46pm, and a British European Airways (BEA) Viscount Discovery aircraft was on its final approach to Ringway at the end of its flight from Amsterdam.
It was a fairly normal March Manchester day – weather was not a contributing factor in what happened, and all appeared normal as flight number 411 descended through the low clouds, the landing gear was lowered and the crew looked ahead in preparation for final approach.
According to an official accident description, around a mile from the runway the aircraft made a sudden right turn, at a steep downward angle and smashed into a house on Shadowmoss Road, Wythenshawe.
It left a scene of devastation – the house was obliterated, and the plane was left in several pieces, with the tail and engines coming to rest yards away from the wreckage of the building.
Three other houses were badly damaged and several people inside them were injured. It took rescue workers many hours to recover the bodies. M.E.N. reporters spoke to shocked residents who witnessed the horror. One said: “The plane looked as though it was going straight through the front door of one of the houses.”
Roy Peacock’s home was just yards from the impact. He said: “I saw flames spurting from the plane before it crashed, it looked as though the plane was bound to crash into the house.”
Mechanical failure was suspected as the cause of the crash, and in the days following the disaster British European Airways withdrew up to 25 of its fleet of Viscount 701 aircraft as a precautionary measure.
An official investigation found that crash probably happened because of metal fatigue in a bolt led to a flap unit becoming detached from the right wing, causing a flap to lock.
Sadly, it wasn’t to be the last time Greater Manchester was hit by air disasters, with infamous crashes involving the Manchester United team in Munich in 1958, in Stockport in 1967, and at Manchester airport in 1985.
See incredible film footage at manchestereveningnews.co.uk.