Major Emmerdale Storylines - The Plane Crash (1993)

The Plane Crash (1993)

The plotline of a plane crashing on to the village of Beckindale occurred on 30 December 1993. The crash killed four regular characters and led to the onscreen renaming of Beckindale to Emmerdale (the village name change was a tribute to the Sugden Family whose farm was known as Emmerdale Farm). The story gained a lot of press and audience attention, giving Emmerdale its highest ever viewing figures of 16 million. The plot line attracted controversy due to the similarity to the Lockerbie disaster; it was aired near to the time of the fifth anniversary of that disaster.

The first scene of the plane crash was when Frank Tate was looking at his wife Kim’s stables when suddenly a ball of fire hits the stables. Nick Bates and Archie Brooks were walking home when they are blinded by some fluid and Archie is engulfed in flames. This would be the last we see of Archie, however his body was never recovered and suspicion remains if he actually died, nevertheless he is declared dead. The Woolpack windows explode in and Joe Sugden crashes his car when a wing of the plane collides with the car. Annie and Leonard Kempinski were also in the car. Joe suffered a broken leg and Annie remained in a coma for several months. However, Leonard died. He and Annie were only married for two months. Up at the stables, Kim had to be restrained from trying to retrieve her horses, she listened helplessly as her horses screamed for help. People in the Woolpack started to regain consciousness. Eric Pollard started wandering around looking for his wife, Elizabeth. As the hours passed, he started to draw attention as many people became suspicious of his behaviour. Elizabeth is eventually found dead and is declared a victim of the plane crash. However, many people, on and off-screen, believe Eric killed his wife as she was on her way to the police to report him for forging cheques. Outside, Alan Turner picks up a plane ticket with the name Kurshkov on it, he notices more wreckage in the field together with Angharad and Bernard McAllister and it becomes more clear what has happened. The local school is used as a base. Mark Hughes’s arm can be seen sticking out of some rubble. At the school, Jack Sugden notices Mark's watch amongst the personal belongings that have been found, it is the one that Annie gave him at Christmas. Jack has the unfortunate task of identifying his body. Chris Tate is discovered in the wine bar but his legs are trapped under heavy rubble. When he is retrieved from the rubble, he is airlifted to hospital. Chris would later learn that he has lost the use of his legs. As Annie was being cut out of the car which Joe had crashed a news bulletin was being heard on the radio about a passenger jet had crashed on the Yorkshire village of Beckindale and it was on its way to Canada from eastern Europe and all 250 passengers and crew had believed to have been killed. We then saw Joe Sugden resting on the back of the ambulance when a paramedic told him that they were unable to save Leonard but Annie was still alive.

Many buildings in the village were left in ruins as a result of the plane crash. Excluding the four dead characters, many other bodies were found all over the village.