Flight
Flight 712 took off from Heathrow at 15:27 GMT (16:27 BST), 12 minutes later than scheduled. Flight 712 had 127 people aboard, including a crew augmented by the addition of an acting flight officer, John Hutchinson, and a check captain for routine performance review of the pilot in command, Captain Taylor. As well as the passengers, the aircraft was carrying baggage, mail and a radioactive isotope from the Isotope Production Unit at Harwell destined for the University Hospital in Jerusalem.
Seconds after take off from Heathrow's then 9,000 feet (2,700 m) long runway 28L (now 12,008 feet (Bad rounding here3,700 m) long and designated 27L), there was an unexpected bang and the aircraft started vibrating. The throttle controlling number two engine was shutting down. While Captain Taylor ordered an engine failure drill, Flight Engineer Thomas Hicks carried out the engine failure drill, but both he and Check Captain Geoffrey Moss reached for the switch to cancel the undercarriage warning horn. At the same time, First Officer Francis Kirkland inadvertently cancelled the fire bell. Hicks reached for, but didn't pull, the engine fire shut-off handle. Moss, observing the fire, exclaimed "Bloody Hell! The wing's on Fire!" A Mayday was broadcast at 15:29.
In the control tower, the takeoff had been observed by John Davis, who saw what he initially thought was the sun reflecting off the aircraft's wing during its initial climb. Davis quickly realised that the aircraft was on fire. Davis instructed Flight 712 to make a left turn, with the intention that the aircraft would land on runway 28L. He hit the "crash button" which alerted the emergency services and declared an aircraft accident. The emergency services were informed of the type of aircraft involved and given a rendezvous point at which they were to assemble.
By this time, the windows on the port side at the rear of the fuselage were beginning to melt. As the aircraft flew over Thorpe the burning engine broke away from its mounting and fell into a gravel pit where some children were playing, without causing any injury. At this time, the undercarriage was lowered and full flap selected. The flaps stopped some three degrees short of their full travel. The aircraft was at a height of 3,000 feet (910 m) and flying at 225 knots (417 km/h) Stewardess Jennifer Suares repeated the emergency landing drill for the benefit of the passengers despite not being sure herself that they would actually manage to land before the aircraft exploded.
The crew realised that the aircraft would not last long enough to enable a landing back on 28L, and declared a Mayday. Davis cleared the aircraft to land on runway 05R, which was 7,733 feet (2,357 m) long. He also instructed two other aircraft to perform a go-around, as runway 05R crossed runway 28R, which they were due to land on and Davis did not know whether Flight 712 would be able to stop before reaching that runway. The crew accepted Davis's offer of runway 05R, even though it was much shorter and not equipped with ILS. Taylor was able to safely land the aircraft on 05R, using wheel brakes and reversing the outboard engines' thrust to halt the aircraft. The aircraft touched down about 400 yards (370 m) beyond the threshold and stopped in 1,400 yards (1,300 m). The aircraft had made a perfect emergency landing after just 3m:32s of flight. Taylor asked Davis for permission to evacuate, but the cabin crew were already opening the emergency doors. The flight crew started the fire drill, but the port wing exploded before this could be completed. As a result, the fire shut off handles were not pulled, and the booster pumps and electrical supply were left switched on. Due to the short period of time between the Mayday being declared at 15:29 and the aircraft landing at 15:31, there was no time for the emergency services to lay a carpet of foam, which was standard practice at the time.
Read more about this topic: BOAC Flight 712
Famous quotes containing the word flight:
“In all her products, Nature only develops her simplest germs. One would say that it was no great stretch of invention to create birds. The hawk which now takes his flight over the top of the wood was at first, perchance, only a leaf which fluttered in its aisles. From rustling leaves she came in the course of ages to the loftier flight and clear carol of the bird.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Fear of error which everything recalls to me at every moment of the flight of my ideas, this mania for control, makes men prefer reason’s imagination to the imagination of the senses. And yet it is always the imagination alone which is at work.”
—Louis Aragon (1897–1982)