‘All I could hear was the tower calling Hotel Golf, Hotel Golf, are you receiving?’
THE first signs of an impending disaster were heard by those on the ground, via the last radio transmissions from the plane, which answered to the call sign ‘Hotel Golf ’.
They gave an insight into what happened in the moments before the dreadful incident.
Amateur radio enthusiast Rodney Davies, 15, a pupil of Dialstone Lane Secondary Modern School had just switched on his radio, specially tuned in to aircraft control wavelengths, when he heard the last message from Ringway Airport’s control tower to the stricken plane.
“The man in the control tower was dealing with three planes at once,” said Rodney of Tintern Grove, Stockport.
“He asked the plane ‘Are you still in contact’; there was no reply, and he moved on to deal with another plane. That was all I heard.”
Rodney wasn’t the only youngster to overhear communications between the plane and control tower.
Howard Johnston, 11, of Cheadle Hulme, tuned his radio to the airport wavelength.
He said: “The control tower said to the captain ‘You are over shooting’ and the captain replied ‘I am having trouble with the rpm’.
“Then the control tower told the pilot to go around for another approach and climb to 2,000 feet. They asked his height and he replied ‘One thousand feet
“Control came in again to ask his height and he replied ‘Eight hundred feet and dropping’. They said he had about eight and a half miles to run.
“The next thing that happened, only a few seconds later, was a message from the control tower to the pilot ‘You have gone off the radar screen’.
“The pilot replied ‘I am down to 500ft can I have full emergency services please?
“The reply from the control tower was ‘They are already waiting. You have six miles to go’
“Then there was silence and all I could hear was the tower calling ‘Hotel Golf, Hotel Golf, are you receiving?’