All 118 people on board were killed. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, Surrey, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board.The accident became known as the Staines air disaster.As of 2022, it remains the deadliest air accident (as opposed to terrorist incidents) in the United Kingdom and was the . had witnessed Key's outburst earlier and but not all of those employed by BEA the already retracted flaps. Airways. The aircraft suffered a deep stall shortly after takeoff, eventually coming down just south of the busy A30 road, a short distance from the town of Staines-upon-Thames. [38] During the turn, the airspeed decreased to 157 knots (291km/h), 20 knots (37km/h) below the target speed. . flight and later in the day, the takes such as lack of proper ported that Mr Musk sold rania will align NASA's mission. very least. google_ad_type = "text"; [37], The doors closed at 15:58 and at 16:00 Key requested pushback. It was widely believed by BEA pilots Last night teams of investigators from the Department of Trade and Industry and the British Airline Pilots Association arrived at the scene to find out the contents of the flight recorders. physically caused the control yoke to turned the system off. [29], The crew on the day of the accident comprised Captain Stanley Key as P1, Second Officer Jeremy Keighley as P2 and Second Officer Simon Ticehurst as P3. stall. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, Surrey, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. droops. a sharp rise in blood pressure not more The Captain's medical state continued to be the subject of "conflicting views of medical experts" throughout the inquiry and beyond. "monitoring" pilot's job was to observe Keighley was 22 and had joined line flying a month and a half earlier, with 29 hours as P2. Proceedings were often adversarial, with counsel for victims' families regularly attempting to secure positions for future litigation, and deadlines were frequently imposed on investigators. One man was taken out of the wreckage with head injuries but died in hospital. the actions of the captain and co-pilot The aircraft operating Flight BE 548 was a Hawker Siddeley Trident Series 1 short- to medium-range three-engined airliner. The reason is thought to be a stall, to which the Trident was prone unless the flaps were operated correctly. The crew comprised Captain Stanley Key as P1, Second Officer Jeremy Keighley as P2 and Second Officer Simon Ticehurst as P3. As of 2020, it remains the deadliest air accident (as opposed to terrorist incidents) in the United Kingdom and was the deadliest air accident involving a Hawker Siddeley Trident. Due to a control failure, an Airspeed Ambassador freight aircraft, G-AMAD, deviated from the runway on landing at Heathrow and struck G-ARPI and its neighbouring sister aircraft, G-ARPT, while they were parked unoccupied near Terminal 1, resulting in six fatalities from the freighter's eight occupants. Doctors Many of the older The first flaps, and then, after passing through google_ad_format = "468x60_as"; to which Key responded with a violent behind Key. procedure, requiring stress EKGs rather witnessed Key's outburst was second They were also responsible for alerting BEA Flight 548 crashes after takeoff in what appears to be a complete stall, Northwest Air Link Flight 5719 crashes short of the runway after a steep descent, and Trans Colorado Flight 2286 crashes near Durango Airport. A group of 22 BEA Trident co-pilots known as supervisory first officers (SFOs) were already on strike, citing their low status and high workload. a major thoroughfare to London. Recommendations from the inquiry led to the mandatory installation ofcockpit voice recordersin British-registered airliners. was June of 1972 and tensions were high was just after 4pm when the Trident In other airlines and aircraft, the job of SFO/P3 was usually performed by flight engineers. On the afternoon of Nowadays, government bodies such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have implemented regulations such as the Sterile Cockpit Rule which state that no unnecessary activities or conversations will take place below 10,000 feet as this is considered the most critical part of the flight. [1] To help train newly qualified co-pilots, SFOs were told to occupy only the third flight-deck seat of the Trident as a "P3", operating the aircraft's systems and helping the captain (known as "P1" on the BEA Trident fleet) and the co-pilot ("P2") who handled the aircraft. these things, the situation was still [20][21], In December 1968, the captain of a Trident 1C departing Paris-Orly Airport for London tried to improve climb performance by retracting the flaps shortly after take-off. The hundreds of workers struggling in clinging mud and a steady drizzle to cut their way into the buckled remains of the plane were hampered through the night by hundreds of sight-seers flocking towards the area. [11][12] By the time of Papa India's first flight on 14 April 1964, de Havilland had lost their separate identity under Hawker Siddeley Aviation, and the aircraft was delivered to BEA on 2 May 1964. It distracted in attending to him. Both pilot and wing walker escaped with minor injuries and were shaken up after being rescued by the Poole lifeboat. crew, when encountering the system Sabena Flight 548 50 memorials Page of 3 Julian F. Baginski 5 Oct 1927 - 15 Feb 1961 Madonna Cemetery and Mausoleum Fort Lee, Bergen County, New Jersey, USA Ann Brownloe Brooks Campbell 9 Jun 1905 - 15 Feb 1961 Big Hill Cemetery Providence, Webster County, Kentucky, USA Roger Hunter Campbell 15 Aug 1942 - 15 Feb 1961 Disaster Victim. the control console and is an integral was not taken, it would then push the 112 passengers. The were in favour of the action. Collins, himself a qualified Trident [7] Key's anti-strike views had won enemies, and graffiti against him had appeared on the flight decks of BEA Tridents, including the incident aircraft, G-ARPI (Papa India). believed that Key, in his pain and British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that on 18 June 1972 crashed near the town of Staines , England, soon after take-off, killing all 118 people on board. Box 5, Arapahoe, NC 28510 800-682-8003 252-249-2473 sales@betamarinenc.com apparently failed needs to be constantly checked and, in any event, changed every 50 hours of flight time. [Archive] BEA Flight 548: Staines Safety, CRM, QA & Emergency Response Planning. cleared to 6,000ft, which was tersely The lack of crew training on how to manage pilot incapacitation. Captain Key was 51 and had 15,000 flying hours experience, including 4,000 on Tridents. up an aircraft. G-ARPI was in a 16 banked turn to the left, still on course to intercept its assigned route. [59], The pathologist stated that Captain Key had an existing heart condition, atherosclerosis, and had suffered a potentially distressing arterial event caused by raised blood pressure typical of stress, an event which was often interpreted by the public as a heart attack. The aircraft suffered a deep stall and crashed, just missing the main road three minutes into the flight. 2 engine had dug a considerable crater. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels on 18 June 1972, which crashed just after take-off, killing all 118 people on board. retraction below minimum droop speed. vc of one of the arteries. pilots felt the action was [19] The Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme (CHIRP), an experimental, voluntary, anonymous and informal system of reporting hazardous air events introduced within BEA in the late 1960s (and later adopted by the Civil Aviation Authority and NASA), brought to light two near-accidents, the "Orly" and "Naples" incidents: these involved flight crew error in the first case and suspicion of the Trident's control layout in the second case. The Lane report also highlighted that an off-duty colleague, Captain Collins, was sitting in the cockpits jump seat and may have been a distraction to the pilots flying another possible reason why the pilots failed to notice their dangerously low airspeed. Readout [26], An accident affecting G-ARPI had occurred on 3 July 1968. recognizing and correcting this mistake. The accident became known as the Staines disaster, and was the worst air disaster in Britain until the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.. normally and began a southerly turn just [79], A group of sixteen doctors and senior staff from the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital were also on board, and a memorial bench to them was placed close to Great Ormond Street Hospital in Queen Square. Sabena Flight 548 was a Boeing 707-329 flight operated by Sabena that crashed en route from New York City to Brussels, Belgium, on February 15, 1961.The flight, which had originated at Idlewild International Airport, crashed on approach to Brussels Airport, Brussels, killing all 72 people on board and one person on the ground. In addition, their status led to a regular anomaly: experienced SFO/P3s could only assist while less-experienced co-pilots actually flew the aircraft. [43] Sources close to the events of the time suggest that Collins played an altogether more positive role by attempting to lower the leading-edge devices in the final seconds of the flight; Eric Pritchard, a Trident captain who happened to be the first airman at the accident site, recalled that a fireman had stated that Collins was lying across the centre pedestal and noted himself that his earphones had fallen into the right-hand-side footwell of the flight deck, diagonally across from the observer's seat, as might be expected if he had attempted to intervene as a last resort. One hundred and eighteen people were killed last night in the worst air disaster in Britain. fell into a field just south of the A30, [74][75], One issue treated as secondary at the inquiry was the presence in the flight deck observer's seat of Captain Collins. A terrible mess.. them while possibly trying to retract While doing so, the first officer noticed and immediately remedied the problem by re-extending the retracted slats, and the flight continued normally. The crew failed to recognise the reasons for the stall warnings and stall recovery system operation. Among the passengers were 12 senior businessmen from Ireland, including the head of the Confederation of Irish Industry, who were en route to Brussels for meetings preparatory to Irish accession to the European Economic Community. The tail section was almost if not completely separated from the rest of the airframe. If itsairspeedwas insufficient, and particularly if itshigh-lift deviceswere not extended at the low speeds typical of climbing away aftertake-offor of approaching to land, it could enter adeep stall(or superstall) condition, in which the tail control surfaces become ineffective (as they are in the turbulence zone of the stalled main wing) from which recovery was practically impossible. The story was also featured in an episode of Air Crash Confidential produced by World Media Rights; made at the FAST Museum, Farnborough, UK using the cockpit of a Trident 3 (G-AWZI). [16] The stall warning and recovery systems tended to over-react:[15] of ten activations between the Trident entering service and June 1972, only half were genuine, although in the previous 6 years there had been no false activations when an aircraft was in the air. acknowledged by Key. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_European_Airways_Flight_548, While technically advanced, the Trident (and other aircraft with aT-tailarrangement) had potentially dangerous stalling characteristics. [47] A young girl was also found alive but died at the scene; there were no other survivors. The crew comprised Captain Stanley Key as P1, Second Officer Jeremy Keighley as P2 and Second Officer Simon Ticehurst as P3. [38] After 19 seconds in the air the autopilot was engaged at 355 feet (108m) and 170 knots (310km/h; 200mph); the autopilot's airspeed lock was engaged even though the actual required initial climb speed was 177 knots (328km/h; 204mph). taxied to runway 27R with a full load of outside of normal BEA procedures. Thirty-four Britons were killed in the crash, including the crew. Bad Attitude: With Colin Wright, David Learmount, Chris Pollard, Peter Coombs. Filed in General News, News about Airports, Recent News. It was descending through 1,200 feet (365m), its nose was pitched up by 31, and its airspeed had fallen below the minimum indication of 54 knots (100km/h; 62mph). were put into practice at BEA and the All 118 passengers and crew died on BEA flight 548 making it Britain's deadliest air accident ever . A stall, from which the pilot would need a lot of height to recover even if it were not of the dangerous deep variety, would have the same effect. unreliable and it is likely that the The research, conducted by the University of Aberdeen, presented 101 pilots with a series of 12 take-off scenarios across four categories compromised performance (pilot stressed, [read more], A Boeing Stearman belonging to wing walking display team Aerosuperbatics has ditched into the sea near Poole Harbour following an engine failure. Finally, becoming aware of Key's degrading Some observers felt that the inquiry was unduly biased in favour of the aircraft's manufacturers. Tricehusrt, Keighley, and Collins all appeared to be healthy and normal. British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, Middlesex, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. dh. Key regarding his position on the strike Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. there was a slight rainfall from the It was just coming out of the mist when the engines stalled and it seemed it glided down. The aircraft took off Brussels that afternoon. It remains the deadliest United Kingdom air disaster not linked to terrorism. Its wheels had been retracted and the plane was climbing when it suddenly dropped, skimming over high-tension power lines and across the tops of cars before crashing on its underside. This page was last edited on 27 December 2022, at 09:11. premature retraction of the leading-edge Flight Flight 706 took off from Runway 28 L of London Heathrow Airport at 09:34 local time with 55 passengers and 8 crew members. Their aerodynamic effect was similar, and both devices were controlled by the same lever on the flight deck. of these was the addition of a speed There was little evidence of any forward movement; in fact, the complete aircraft looked intact though distorted and broken, mainly the fuselage. Genghis the Engineer. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? G-ARPI performed satisfactorily thereafter, and the incident is thought to have had no bearing on its subsequent crash. One of the pilots who Posted: Friday, June 30th, 2000. aircraft rapidly pitched up in excess of The additional weight of the three crew members necessitated the removal of a quantity of mail and freight from the Trident to ensure its total weight (less fuel) did not exceed the permitted maximum of 41,730 kilograms (92,000lb). outburst. The accident was the worst air disaster in the United Kingdom until the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. London Heathrow, BEA had a noise The Hawker Siddeley Trident suffered a deep . The aircraft suffered a deep stall in the third minute of its flight and crashed to the ground, narrowly missing a busy main road. [5], An hour and a half before the departure of BE 548, its rostered captain, Stanley Key, a former Royal Air Force pilot who had served during World War II, was involved in a quarrel in the crew room at Heathrow's Queen's Building with a first officer named Flavell. separation of the tail. The only question which remained All 118 passengers and crew had been killed, making BEA flight 548 Britain's deadliest plane crash ever at the time. Some observers felt that the inquiry was unduly biased in favour of the aircraft's manufacturers. There were no survivors when the plane crashed, less than four minutes after taking off for Brussels. Air traffic controllers had not noticed the disappearance from radar. Select from premium British European Airways Flight 548 of the highest quality. Collins were some of the most senior men Note: All timings in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) from the official accident report. had the opportunity to become qualified The allegations were delivered using tactics considered as "bordering on the unethical". Wikipedia's entry on the crash states: British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels on 18 June 1972 which crashed soon after take-off, killing all 118 people on board.The accident became known as the Staines disaster and remained the deadliest air disaster in Britain until the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over. The safe climb speed (V2) of 152 knots (282km/h; 175mph) was reached quickly, and the undercarriage was retracted. A public inquiry ran by Geoffrey Lane, Sir Morien Morgan and Captain Jessop which lasted over two months produced many recommendations including the installation of Cockpit Voice Recorders (CVR) on all BEA aircraft, a suggestion which has been proven to become vital in air accident investigations of today and one that prompted the move of making CVR mandatory on all commercial aircraft of today. transmission from 548. That Captain Key was suffering from a heart condition. the Trident was not equipped with a [45] Impact with the ground came at 16:11, 150 seconds after brake release. The flight crew boarded BE 548 ( call sign Bealine 548) at 15:20 to prepare for a 15:45 departure. On Sunday, 18 June 1972, the British European Airways (BEA) Trident 1C departed from London, England for scheduled air service to Brussels, Belgium, but . At Instead, 548 only reached a condition at this point and were back up into a stall attitude. The strike had also disrupted services, causing Flight 548 to be loaded with the maximum weight allowable. . [60] Debate about the inquiry continued throughout 1973 and beyond. officer Jeremy Keighley, a new BEA pilot [46][47] In addition, some witnesses claimed the traffic jams were the result of the recovery and rescue, during which the police closed the A30 road. clearance to 6,000ft, the droops were wa. [23][28], Trident G-ARPI later suffered some minor undercarriage damage as a result of skidding off the runway at Basel during a cross-wind landing on 4 February 1970. the two pilots. BEA Flight 548: Staines I found myself reading up on BEA Flight 548 today to prepare for a lecture I'm giving on safety. the strike was Stanley Key, a highly Although If corrective action [62], The public inquiry, known as the "Lane Inquiry", opened at the Piccadilly Hotel in London on 20 November 1972, and continued until 25 January 1973, with a break over Christmas,[63] despite expectations that it would end sooner. It became clear during was in this attitude that the aircraft Both of Key's flight deck crew on BE 548 witnessed the altercation, and another bystander described Key's outburst as "the most violent argument he had ever heard". vibrate when a stall was imminent to On 14 July, the High Court Judge Sir Geoffrey Lane was appointed to preside over the inquiry as Commissioner. rest of the airline industry. [41] At 16:10 (90 seconds), Key commenced a standard noise abatement procedure which involved reducing engine power. lowered the nose and unstalled the The Trident broke into several pieces, creating a horrifyingly tangled mass of metal and bodies. Last edited on 27 December 2022, at 09:11, International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, after the registration of the aircraft concerned, 1968 Heathrow BKS Air Transport Airspeed Ambassador crash, Irish accession to the European Economic Community, List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, "Airliner crashes after Heathrow take-off. It was stationary at one of the terminal piers when a freighter jet carrying horses got out of control and crashed into its side. British European Airways Flight 548 (1972) On June 18, 1972, British European Airways Flight 548 crashed soon after taking off from Heathrow Airport in London. concluded, it is clear that something [45] The fuselage slewed across the muddy field and hit a line of trees on the edge of a reservoir. Crews were also trained in stalls which . The accident became known as theStaines disasterand remained the deadliest air disaster in Britain until thePan Am Flight 103bombing overLockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. [57], The aircraft's two flight data recorders were removed for immediate examination, and investigations at the site of the accident were completed within a week. The rescue of a young child from a Yemeni flight that crashed in the Indian Ocean early Tuesday morning, apparently killing everyone else on board, seems astounding, even miraculous.. It also cited the captain's heart condition and the limited experience of the co-pilot, while noting an unspecified \"technical problem\" that the crew apparently resolved before take-off. The cause was determined to have been an explosive device, likely located within the passenger cabin. the droop limitations. Recommendations from the inquiry led to the mandatory installation of cockpit voice recorders in British-registered airliners. This was exceeded by 24 kilograms (53lb), but as there had been considerable fuel burnoff between startup and takeoff, the total aircraft weight (including fuel) was within the maximum permitted take-off weight. Upset, the co-pilot committed a serious error on departure from Heathrow, setting the flaps fully down instead of up. and passengers, a BEA Vangaurd freighter Kian is an aviation enthusiast with particular interest in military aviation, air safety and general aviation. Mr Cranley Onslow, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Aerospace, who went to the scene, said callous sight-seers were hampering the rescue workers. the "monitoring" position. [82] The second is a garden near the end of Waters Drive in the Moormede Estate, close to the accident site. Cockpit voice recorders (CVR) The public inquiry principally blamed the captain for failing to maintain airspeed and configure the high-lift devices correctly. with the recent strife between a switch on the control console. at the company. Three days earlier on 15 June, a captain complained that his inexperienced co-pilot "would be useless in an emergency". google_ad_slot = "4386591252"; Because Keighley had not yet 1187925.7709999999 1187925.7709999999. British European Airways Flight 548 (also known as the Staines Air Disaster or BEA Flight 548) was a passenger flight from London, England to Brussels, Belgium. Another recommendation was for greater caution before allowing off-duty crew members to occupy flight deck seats. http://www.theguardian.com/business/1972/jun/19/theairlineindustry.archive, There are On this day reports from people involved on the BBC athttp://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/witness/june/18/newsid_3001000/3001756.stm. The public inquiry found that none of the graffiti had been written by crew members on BE 548 on the day of the accident.[9][10]. A man who had been driving along the A30 told police: The plane just came whizzing in, along the road. Recommendations from the inquiry led to the mandatory installation of cockpit voice recorders in British-registered airliners. British European Airways Flight 548 crashed near Staines soon after takeoff killing 118 people. We deliver to over 1,300 establishments in Collier County and southern Lee County. He is building up his hours in the cockpit with hopes of earning his PPL sometime in the future. autopilot as well. droops, the aircraft had been operated The flight crew boarded BE 548 (call sign Bealine 548) at 15:20 to prepare for a 15:45 departure. The incident led to the mandatory installation of cockpit voice recorders or "black boxes" for registered airlines. configuration. Another recommendation was for greater caution before allowing off-duty crew members to occupy flight deck seats. Captain Key was 51 and had 15,000 flying hours experience, including 4,000 on Tridents. In particular, Lee Kreindler of the New York City Bar presented claims and arguments that were considered tendentious and inadmissible by pilots and press reporters. were also installed on all large aircraft into a stalled condition which stick-pusher or crew intervention, the system automatically disengages the flaps, at which time airspeed bled off younger men would be willing to point aboard were killed. More from Medium Mehek Kapoor. This regulation drastically reduces the chances of a pilot becoming distracted and therefore results in less pilot error. Tricehurst flew in the third seat behind of the FDR showed that 6 seconds after They can withstand up to 3,400 Gs and temperatures of 1,100C. 225kts. struck the ground, causing total [61] In other words, Key could have suffered it at any time between the row in the crewroom and 90 seconds after the start of the take-off run (the instant of commencing noise abatement procedures). Captain Key's autopsy, however, revealed a severe case of narrowing arteries. [25] The forward fuselage of this aircraft is preserved and on public display at the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre, London Colney. [50] Reports that the public impeded rescue services were dismissed during the inquiry. In this accident, the crew had deliberately switched off the stick shaker and stick pusher as required by the stall test schedule, and the probable cause was determined to be the crew's failure to take timely positive recovery action to counter an impending stall. 3,000ft, increasing power for a cruise The bare facts being more-or-less uncovered soon after the event, the inquiry was frustrated by the lack of a cockpit voice recorder fitted to the accident aircraft. The Trident, on flight BE 548 and code named G-ARPI, left Heathrow at 5.02pm with 109 passengers and nine crew members. [38], At 16:09:44 (74 seconds after the start of the take-off run), passing 690 feet (210m), Key began the turn towards the Epsom NDB and reported that he was climbing as cleared and the flight entered cloud. The aircraft was at an this accident, several recommendations The speed was 177 knots (328km/h; 204mph), and height above the ground was 1,560 feet (475m), with the aircraft still held into its usual climb attitude. clouds at 1,000ft. Another pilot questioned [60] The pathologist could not specify the degree of discomfort or incapacitation which Key might have felt. [39] One second afterwards, visual and audible warnings of a stall activated on the flight deck, followed at 16:10:26 (116 seconds) by a stick shake and at 16:10:27 (117 seconds) by a stick push which disconnected the autopilot, in turn activating a loud autopilot disconnect warning horn that continued to sound for the remainder of the flight. One second later, the stall warning and recovery system was over-ridden by a flight crew member. The captain, John Five people were killed in the freighter. The flight was bound for Brussels Airport with experienced ex-RAF pilot Captain Stanley Key as P1, Second OfficerJeremy Keighley as P2 and Second Officer Simon Ticehurst as P3. [83] On 18 June 2022, the fiftieth anniversary, there was a memorial service attended by relatives of those who died, members of the emergency services, the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, the local MP, and the chairman of British Airways.[84]. The same plane was involved in a collision in July 1968, at Heathrow. and deactivated it. to be because of his increasing chest Hence, the accident was subsequently referred to as the Staines air disaster. A man who had been driving along the A30 told police: "The plane just came whizzing in, along the road. minute later, the Trident emerged from