All language subtitles for Kegworth Flight to Disaster (2026)_[English]

This programme contains scenes which
some viewers may find upsetting

This was the ill-fated
British Midland plane

several hours before the disaster,

landing safely at Heathrow on its
routine shuttle run from Belfast.

Yes. Nonsmoking window.

It was a Sunday night.

The flight that I was booked on
was for 6.30.

I got to the gate
probably 30 seconds after 6.30.

OK. Missed the flight.
They wouldn't let me on.

The gate people said that

I could take the next
British Midland flight.

So it was fine. Wasn't going to be
delayed as much. OK.

Hello. Departures.

Gate six. Thank you. Bye.

Went back over to London
about three or four times.

Sonia would have spent
quite a bit in Oxford Street,

shopping or whatever.
Have lunch, go to a show.

We went there to enjoy ourselves,
and we certainly did.

Can I have the attention of all
passengers travelling to Belfast?

Can they please come down
to gate 49?

My father was in the RAF
so I'd grown up with aircraft,

so I was perfectly happy
getting on a plane.

Myself and my business partner,

we had a successful trip
at the London Boat Show,

met a few new suppliers,
and then we just had to fly home.

833, thank you.
Cityhopper behind you.

When he's left,
then push is approved.

That wasn't the plane that we were
originally going to travel on.

We had been to meet friends
in Wales...

..so we rescheduled our flight
back home.

We could have easily have not
have been on that plane...

..but we had changed it,
and that was it.

Mm-hm. That was it, yeah.
We were on it.

INDISTINCT PA ANNOUNCEMENT

The terrible tragedy of Lockerbie
had just happened.

I think it was well known by January
that it had been a terrorist attack.

NEWSREEL: Pan American Flight 103
had more than 250 people on board.

It came down on the village
of Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire.

I was in Belfast.
We were sitting at a bar,

and it had actually come up
on the screen about Lockerbie.

I remember looking at it.
It was unbelievable.

I remember saying
to one of my friends,

"My goodness, look at that!
We're flying out in January."

One never knew
what was going to happen.

It never crossed my mind.
It doesn't.

The anti-terrorist measures
enforced at Heathrow Airport

are acknowledged to be
among the tightest in the world.

Armed police regularly patrol
the arrival and departure halls.

We were so used to having security.

Second nature, wouldn't it be?

With us seeing soldiers and police
armed and things like that,

which you would never see
in England,

because they don't have soldiers
on the street.

But in Ulster,
it was an everyday occurrence,

getting stopped and checked.

We walk down the jetway,
we get onto the plane.

It actually smelt new.
It was a brand-new aircraft.

I think it had only been flying
for a few weeks,

so it just had a, you know,
a nice, new smell.

I was sitting in the front row and,
you know, everything seemed fine.

It was great.

I was flying home to see my wife
and my daughter,

who was about ten months old
at the time.

We were sitting two seats
from the front.

I sat at the window
so I could look out.

Eamon always let me have
the window seat, keep me happy.

We were at the rear of the aircraft.

The cabin crew come around
with the food.

I thought to myself,
"This is great,"

because I said, "Right, I'll have
my meal, have my glass of wine,

"and then whenever they come back,

"I'll maybe have a little whiskey
just to finish it off."

I'm a big aviation enthusiast.

My father was a pilot
with Aer Lingus.

In 1989, he would have been
Aer Lingus' chief pilot.

He had flown all the models of 737
up to that point.

I would have known that it was
the Boeing 737 400 series.

You saw that and you went,
"Oh, it's one of the new ones!

"That's interesting.
Let's see what that's like."

NEWSREEL: The Boeing 737 is the
world's best-selling airliner.

It has a record of safety
and reliability.

Suddenly, there was this
just banging vibration.

There was an explosion.

That's all I can say.

There appeared to be an explosion.

To me, it sounded like
somebody was outside

with a hammer trying to get inside.

It was just unbelievable noise.

There's a loud bang comes from
the left-hand side, and I glance out,

and what I see is
showers of sparks coming out

from the back end of the engine
on that side.

The plane was shaking.

It was vibrating.

I looked out through the window...

..and I could see the engine,
and it was like an oval flame.

It was the flames
that was the terrifying bit.

Absolutely terrifying.

The shuddering...

..got worse.

Horrendous. Scary.

The cabin was filling with smoke.

You think, "My God, I'm up here.
There's no getting off." Hmm.

Eamon took my hand and said,

"You know, we'll be fine, darling.
Nothing will happen."

Which was a big lie!

I was petrified.

The flames were coming out of
the engine,

and then it just suddenly stopped...

..as if somebody had
flicked a switch,

and the plane seemed to stabilise.

Whatever they did in the cockpit,
the shuddering stopped.

The pilot made an announcement,

and he said that there had been
a fault with the right-hand engine,

that everything was under control,

and that we were going to divert
to East Midlands,

and we'd all continue our journey
from there.

I was concerned,
but I wasn't overly concerned

because I knew an aircraft could fly
on one engine.

I wouldn't say I was happy about it,
but I knew we should be OK.

We thought, "Well, maybe that's
the end of it."

We talked over, "We have to get home.

"I hope somebody put all the uniforms
in the washing machine!" Yep.

"Have to get this ready
for the children,"

and trying to make it
as normal as possible,

and about what we WERE going to
be doing.

Alls we were thinking about
was get this plane down,

get it landed, get it on the ground.

You could feel the manoeuvres
and you begin to hear

the control surfaces being deployed
and that sort of thing.

The nose was tilted down a little.

The ground was getting closer.

There was another almighty explosion
from the engine.

Only this time, it was worse because
there was bits of the engine

hitting the fuselage
close to where we were sitting.

The vibration was so strong
I couldn't actually see

the person who was
sitting beside me.

The noise stopped...

..and then there was just
complete and utter silence.

The plane was coming down
without any engines.

I knew something was
catastrophically wrong.

All I could hear was
what sounded to me like wind

whistling past the aircraft as the
aircraft flew through the air.

I was looking out,
and then I could see the lights.

And I knew then that
we were definitely going to crash.

The next thing is the pilot

giving us the instructions
for brace positions.

These were commands that
you only seen in television.

No-one in their right mind
ever thinks

it's going to happen to them.
No-one.

We're going to crash.

The plane is going to crush.

We were at the station
at Loughborough...

..and we got the call at 8.15, 8.20.

So we made our way to the airport,

and we'd just arrived
as the plane was coming in.

We were approaching Kegworth
on the M1

and there, very, very clear
in the air just above the village,

was an airliner coming in.

And as we watched,
the port engine exploded.

And then it started to turn,

and we watched it come round
until in the end it disappeared

behind a forest of trees
ahead of us.

An airliner with 118 passengers
on board

has crashed on the M1 motorway
in Leicestershire.

It came down near junction 24
of the motorway,

just short of the
East Midlands Airport.

Immediately, the airport crew
shot off in their appliances,

and we followed them.

NEWSREEL: The Boeing 737 almost made
it to the East Midlands Airport

runway. Diverting from its Belfast
course after a fire in one engine,

the pilot hoped to reach safety
on the remaining one.

We didn't really know what it was.

It looked like a plume of smoke.

It could have been a load of dust.

I said, "Oh, it looks like smoke.
"I'd better stop,"

which we did on the M1 bridge, and I
got out of the car to look over.

It was only then that
I actually looked to the side

and saw the plane on the side of
the M1 on the embankment.

So that was really when
the horror struck me

that what had happened,
and people were inside the plane.

..at this stage, we're trying to
get the aircraft over

so we can get a passenger list.

It looks like zero Bravo
with an Echo on the end.

I can't give you any details...

Myself and Rob Dawson got to
the bottom of the aircraft

and was looking up at the wreckage.

Its tail was hanging in the trees
above that, split completely off,

and the whole back section
of the aircraft

was swaying in the trees
above the aeroplane.

I remember coming to
in the wreckage,

and the first thing I thought was,

"There's going to be a fire.
I've got to get out."

You could see all the people...

..bent over...

..obviously unconscious.

I remember touching the side
of the cabin...

..wall, and it actually being hot.

And then I thought about fire.

The whole embankment
was like a flood.

And I turned round to Rob
and I said,

"Where the hell is all
this water coming from?"

And he said, "It isn't water.

"Can't you smell it?
It's aviation fuel."

I was just dangling in mid-air.

The next thing, when you got
a few of your senses back again,

was the smell of aviation fuel.

I couldn't move.

Smelling fuel, knowing that
the engine had been on fire...

..that was equally as scary as being
up there at 4,000ft, 5,000ft.

Yeah.

NEWSREEL: The plane's wings, which
were also fuel tanks,

remained intact, and firemen sprayed
them with foam and drained hundreds

of gallons of fuel from them as
the long night of rescue work began.

Locals, fearing another Lockerbie,
rushed to the scene.

Their offers of help were readily
accepted by the emergency services.

There were so many people
running to the site to help.

The people didn't know
whether there was anybody alive.

Were they badly injured
or were they walking wounded?

Villagers are very sad and very
sorry for the people that have died

and the people that are injured.

I noticed, where the wing was,

there was a doorway
that had been opened.

I went towards that.

It was pitch-black inside.

And there was a passenger,
and he stood up in front of me.

Made me jump, really.

And I said, "Are you all right?"

And he says, "Yeah."

And it was quiet.

There was no cries or anything.

I said, "Is it empty?"

He said, "No. They're all trapped."

And then you started to hear
a few people shouting out,

but not massively.
It was so strange.

My feet were trapped.

I remember pushing the seat in front,
and my ankles...

..started sliding out, and I could
see that they were pretty messed up.

And Eamon eventually made his way
up beside me...

..and he tried to help me
by ripping his shirt,

because he was going to
tie my ankles off.

But he couldn't do it
because his arm...

..was broken.

Rob got himself next to
the shell of the aeroplane,

which had cracked
just behind the wing.

I was on the other side of him,

hanging on to one tree
with my left hand.

And that's how it was from about
8.20 till coming on midnight...

..that I was holding on to
that tree with one hand

and lifting people down
with my other hand, between us.

The ambulance men got up.

We started passing the people out of
the aircraft as best we could.

Really surprising
how many people came out alive

on that back section
behind us there. Just unbelievable.

NEWSREEL: More than 30 ambulances
queued up along the M1,

waiting to take the injured
to nearby hospitals.

I got out of that aircraft...

..I don't know how.

I knew I'd broken my leg,
because I could actually feel it.

I was definitely in pain
by the side of the road.

There are blue lights
and red lights and...

..into an ambulance. Off we go.

SIRENS WAIL

Ambulances started appearing
at the A&E department

with people who had been
taken off the plane badly injured.

NEWSREEL: Many of the victims

suffered broken bones
and abdominal injuries.

By the time the fourth ambulance
delivered its case,

we knew that this was
a major incident.

NEWSREEL: RAF rescue helicopter
pilots lowered their machines

carefully onto the road,

their rotor blades passing
only feet from the motorway lights.

The fuselage had broken up,
so the floor panels were crumpled.

So everybody that was
still on that aeroplane,

they were all trapped.

I could feel something
sticking out of my flesh,

and the arm was bent over
at a right angle.

And I remember touching, just...

And I says,
"I think my arm is broke."

NEWSREEL: Deep inside
the shattered fuselage,

the firemen worked to cut their way
through to those remaining.

One of the rescuers actually
crawled into the aircraft,

and he was able to get my legs

and slowly pull me out.

Those people that were with us,

they were ours.
They were our casualties.

And we were talking to them.

Anything to try and
take your mind off it.

I mean, it's ridiculous, really,
but that's what we tried.

They took me out of the ambulance,
and I remember

I was wheeled in on a trolley
on my back, facing the ceiling.

And these plastic doors open,

and suddenly I'm inside

with the doctors and nurses
on either side.

I remember just that emotion of,

once the hospital doors opened,

just the relief was just...
It was incredible.

I just thought, "Oh, you know,
I've made it. I'm OK. I'm safe."

Well, I thought,
just before we hit the deck,

you know, I thought,
"This is it. We've had it."

I mean, the thought
running through my mind that

there's not too many people
survive an air crash.

So I guess I'm pretty lucky.

You know? It's...

It's a strange experience.

My ankle bones were severed...

..one of my heel bones was smashed,

and all my toes were broken.

The doctor said to me my feet were
like a bag of crisps, broken crisps.

It was very painful.

NEWSREEL: Throughout the night
at Belfast International Airport,

relatives and friends of passengers
on the British Midland flight

from Heathrow to Belfast
waited anxiously for news.

My father-in-law
come up to the airport

along with my 18-month-old son
for to pick us up from the flight.

NEWSREEL: Some complained that
information was slow

in coming through.

Senior British Midland executives
were sent to speak to them.

They took him down this corridor,

and that's whenever he was told
that the plane had crashed...

..which must have been horrific.

They couldn't tell who had survived
and who hadn't survived.

NEWSREEL: A fire chief said
the last survivor was recovered

from the wreckage at 3.30
this morning.

The last body was removed
an hour later.

Of 117 passengers

and one infant

on board the aircraft,

we believed that 44 are dead...

..and 73 and the infant
have survived.

The eight crew members on board
the aircraft have all survived.

We got on the minibus
and nobody said anything at all.

It was just silence.

But the worst of it was
when I finally got home...

..at my house...

..and I walked in,

and my wife and my two little girls

were sat watching television
with the air crash

and myself on an interview, talking,

and they were watching it
as I walked through the door.

And it's then that it hit me...

..and I had to go
into the toilet and...

..sit down and have a...
to be honest, I had a good cry.

Simple as that.

Because, you know,
it really got to us then,

what we'd... what we'd done.

NEWSREEL: Tonight, the wreck lies
silently beside the motorway.

The rescuers have gone.
Their job is finished.

The crash investigators
are just beginning theirs.

NEWSREEL: Daylight revealed a deep
furrow in a field

above the motorway,
the spot where the descending Boeing

first touched the ground
with its tail,

bouncing into the motorway
cutting beyond

and losing any chance of
reaching the airport.

NEWSREEL: The pilot who survived
will be a crucial eyewitness.

He's been praised for successfully
negotiating his crippled aircraft

away from houses
in the village of Kegworth.

There's always a pressure
to try to come up with an answer

as an investigator.

The aircraft nearly made it
to the runway,

but had clearly run out of energy.

Therefore, you're thinking
in terms of,

maybe there is
an engine problem of some sort.

Certainly,
in comparison with Lockerbie,

the thing we could really rule out

was actually some sort of sabotage
or improvised explosive.

NEWSREEL: Gathering evidence,
the police carried out

an inch-by-inch search
of the motorway this morning.

It's thought the aircraft
initially came down in a field

and bounced on
the M1's central reservation

before coming to rest
on the muddy embankment.

The Kegworth accident happened

less than three weeks after
the bombing at Lockerbie.

And the investigation teams
were very hard stretched

to deal with
two very significant accidents

at the same time.

The investigators, particularly
with the new aircraft type,

all eyes were on them.

They would have felt
a huge amount of pressure

to find the right answer,

but also that pressure
to try and find a rapid answer.

We rule out nothing.

We simply cannot.

It's not for us
at this stage to say,

but I've just spoken to
three inspectors over there.

They obviously want
to get at the engines,

and they will know a lot more
when they've been able to do that.

REPORTER: Have you been told
a possible cause, Mrs Thatcher?

NEWSREEL: The investigation is
focusing on the 737's last minutes,

when the second engine failed.

At that point, what should have been
a containable emergency

became a tragedy.

Initial speculation
included the fact that

it was possible that both engines
had failed on this aircraft.

It seems that
British Midland Flight 092

was brought down by the failure
of both engines on the Boeing 737.

British Midland have taken
their other 737-400

out of service for the time being,

and Dan-Air and AirUK,

which each have one,
have done likewise.

The probability of actually having
two independent failures

on the same flight is statistically
almost insignificant. It is tiny.

NEWSREEL: The odds of both failing
may be millions to one against,

but it's still the starting point
for the inquiry.

On the evening of
our first full day...

..I was invited to go up
in a police helicopter.

I suggested that what we would
want to do is take photographs

from roughly where the aircraft
should have been on the glide path.

NEWSREEL: If the Boeing's remaining
engine had delivered its power

for just another 30 seconds, it
would have reached the

runway threshold at the end of
its string of approach lights,

half a mile beyond the motorway.

As the aircraft is coming to land,

it's still travelling at
quite a high speed.

Most of the damage was done

when the aircraft hit the embankment
at the far side of the M1.

And at that point,

people may have experienced
G-forces of around 22 G.

Now, that's the equivalent of

22 times the normal force
of gravity.

So if you imagine the weight of
a body multiplied by 22 times,

then that is the weight that's being
thrown against the seat in front...

..and that was one of the reasons
that the injuries were so severe.

They tried their best.

We just had to keep going down
to surgery every day

and they did a bit more work,
and they did a bit more work.

So you were coming up and then you
were coming out of the anaesthetic

and...the pain would just hit you.

I had a damaged retina on my eye...

..a fractured shoulder,

a compound fracture of the left arm,

ligament damage,
and damage to both my knees.

NEWSREEL: Recovering in hospital
in Nottingham,

some survivors were visited today
by the Prince of Wales.

We had a visit by Prince Charles.

The Prince also talked to
David and Sonia Seaton from Bangor,

travelling home from
the London January sales.

He very kindly asked how I was,

and he says,
"Sonia, after the crash,

"What was the first thing
David said to you?"

For a while,
the first few minutes,

David didn't speak,
and I sort of thought...

But I sort of kept shaking him

and talking to him,
and he kept conscious. But...

He finally said something?

Oh, yes, he did.

BOTH LAUGH

"Get off my leg!"

So, you know,

it was quite comical at the time.
"Get off my leg!"

Brian, who was my best man
at my wedding,

he got into his car
and drove up from London,

and so he appeared
at 2.00 in the morning,

stayed with me all night,
which was good.

Felt good. Yeah.

Felt good.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was... It was important.

My parents actually flew over
on the Monday.

The chaplain in the hospital
had called them.

At that point,
you began to learn the severity.

I hadn't seen a photograph
at that point, so...

There were no newspaper photographs
so you could see what was going on.

Nobody was really telling you about

the overall severity,
so we didn't begin to learn that

really until the next day.

About, you know, the number of...

..unfortunate fatalities
on the night, and in fact,

fatalities kept going for
the first week, you know, people...

..erm...

WHISPERS: Sorry.

HE SIGHS HEAVILY

Do you want to take a break?

Maybe a minute.
Yeah, yeah.

These things just sneak up on you
and ambush you.

NEWSREEL: The grief caused
by last Sunday's tragedy

in Leicestershire won't ever go away
for the families of the victims.

In his homily,
Father Anthony O'Connor said

they were united by a chain
of sadness and heartbreak

with those families and communities
throughout Northern Ireland,

Britain, and other countries
and continents

who had also suffered in the crash.

NEWSREEL: Today's service
was conducted

by the Reverend Trevor Williams.

He strongly criticised those

who'd tried to find a scapegoat
for the disaster.

REV WILLIAMS: It's all too easy
to lash out,

as some have done, to try and answer
the question, "Why?"

by pointing the finger of blame,

to find, as it were, a target
for our anger...

..even though the full facts
of what happened

have yet to be revealed.

NEWSREEL: With some 400 planes still
in service using similar engines

as the crashed
British Midland Boeing,

accident investigators are working
all out to pinpoint the cause

of Sunday night's crash.

In the days following an accident,

investigators have
to remain incredibly open-minded,

because they will find information
comes from many sources

and seems to be contradictory.

NEWSREEL: The last conversations
that went on here

in the cockpit are now being
analysed from recordings

in the Boeing's black box
flight recorder,

which is already in Farnborough.

Investigators appear uncertain about
what happened to the right engine,

which suffered a complete
loss of power.

There is still confusion

over the sequence of events which
finally led the plane to crash.

We were very interested,

particularly in
what the state of the engines was.

It was very apparent that the
right-hand engine looked undamaged,

but the left engine was much more
damaged, and that got us puzzling.

At the point they were able
to interview the flight crew,

they will have had one version
of the story,

the point they looked at the digital
flight data recorder,

and also listened to
the cockpit voice recorder,

they could start to build a picture,

which in this case
started to conflict with

some of the information
that came from the passengers.

It was coming in that the witnesses,

particularly on the left-hand side
of the aircraft, had seen sparks,

flames, coming from the left engine,

and this immediately started
to ring some alarm bells.

There was an inconsistency
here which needed to be answered.

And joining me now from the scene
of the crash is Ed Trimble,

a member of the team investigating
the cause of the accident.

Well, Mr Trimble,
there has been some confusion.

Can we try and clear it up
once and for all?

First of all, when we talk about the
engine on the left side,

what happened to it?

So we can see signs
of fire damage on the left engine.

Now, what about the other engine?
The engine on the right-hand side.

What do you know about that?

It...looks as though it's in
a zero thrust condition,

consistent with shutdown before
the aircraft crashed.

That must have been there

for the engine that failed
just before the plane

was due to land on the runway.

No.

So when was THAT shut down?

It was shut down at a previous point
in the flight.

What are the possibilities?
Why would that engine stop?

We have no evidence at the moment

of a mechanical failure
on the right engine.

So are you suggesting
that it could be a human error?

At this stage of the investigation,

all possibilities are open
in that regard.

And we really will be, erm,

little forward until we do a strip
examination of both engines.

Are there any signs of fire
on the right-hand engine?

No. It was... But you're convinced
that it wasn't operating,

erm, towards the end of the flight?

That engine was shut down
before the aircraft crashed.

The investigator in charge,
Eddie Trimble,

realised quite early on that,
in fact,

the right-hand engine had been shut
down prior to the aircraft landing.

And when he shared that
on the One O'Clock News,

that changed the story
for so many people,

and there was a very strong reaction
against that.

NEWSREEL: The pilot, whose back
and legs were broken in the crash,

gave evidence to investigators
today,

as some newspapers suggested
it could have been his fault.

Captain Kevin Hunt spent
half an hour this morning

with aviation accident
investigators.

He hasn't seen some of
today's newspaper speculation

about the cause of Sunday night's
crash,

and he hasn't been listening
to radio

or watching television news
bulletins.

If it emerges that the starboard
engine was completely safe,

how could an experienced pilot
have shut down the wrong engine?

The speculation,
they were trying to find blame.

Was it the engines?
Can we blame the engines?

Was the pilot?
Can we blame the pilot?

Was it...anything else?

I mean, here's this man,
25 years flying,

wakes up one morning,
takes his plane,

has this terrible accident
that occurs,

does his best, and then is found
to be a hero in the morning

and now a villain at night. And I
think that's rather tragic,

the way we deal with
these personalities

before we've had
a proper examination of the facts.

NEWSREEL: A heavy crane was
manoeuvred into position

to lift the tail section.

The chief crash investigator
Ed Trimble has been told

to give no further TV interviews
after he told the BBC

that he could find no evidence
of a fire in the right-hand engine.

REPORTER: Mr Trimble, BBC.
Can we talk to you?

I'm sorry.

I couldn't conceive that something
so disastrous had actually occurred.

How could they possibly
have turned off the wrong engine?

NEWSREEL: Checks are being made
on cockpit instruments,

which could possibly have given the
pilot inaccurate information

about the emergency he was
fighting to control.

Some of what enters your head, then,

is, well, I could see it was
the left-hand engine. So...

..what could we have done? Should we
have done? You know what I mean?

The whether or not you should have
put your hand up...

..kind of hangs heavy.

NEWSREEL: Investigators believe
the tip of a turbofan blade

sheared off and crashed through
the casing of an engine.

The initiating event
in the whole thing

was the failure of one blade
of the left-hand engine.

The engine and other parts
were taken to the manufacturers.

They discovered the number 17
fan blade at the front had broken

and part of it had fallen back into
the engine,

causing extensive damage.

There was a lot of vibration,

a lot of noise, and the engine
actually went into what we call

surge, which includes bangs
and high vibration.

It's almost like
an engine backfiring.

NEWSREEL: One second after
the vibration started,

the First Officer, David McClelland,
said, "We got a fire."

Eight seconds later, he said...

Captain Kevin Hunt replied...

Mr McClelland...

"OK," said Captain Hunt.

"Throttle it back."

Having diagnosed what they thought
was the failing engine,

they pulled the throttle back
on that engine.

And actually, as they did that,

the vibration and the smoke
seemed to go away.

And the crew identify that as being,

"Oh, that confirms
we did the right thing,"

and they then proceed to shut
down the right-hand engine.

They didn't actually
have a fire warning,

so it would not be necessary

for them to have shut down
the right-hand engine.

They believed they had a healthy
engine, which would be enough

to fly that aircraft
to an alternative destination.

As they prepared
to make their landing,

what is normally the case,
they will apply additional thrust.

And it was in doing that
that the damaged engine actually

started to fail further.

The crew at that point
have no options.

They can't restart
the right-hand engine in time,

and that makes the descent
into the motorway

sort of inevitable.

CRUMPLING, GLASS SHATTERS

NEWSREEL: The official report into
the M1 air crash criticises the

two pilots, Captain Kevin Hunt and
the co-pilot David McClelland.

It says they acted prematurely when
they shut down what turned out to be

the plane's good engine.

The report said their hasty decision
to turn off

the wrong engine caused the tragedy.

The crew felt that
they followed their training,

that they responded to the
information that was available

to them at the time.

NEWSREEL: The pilots of the British
Midland Jet

are to leave the airline in January.

British Midland said it viewed
with "grave concern"

the report's conclusion that
the pilots' actions

were contrary to their training.

Subsequent to the accident,

when people made reports about human
error and pilot error in this case,

they felt that was
an unfair characterisation

of what they'd done,

and so they defended their
position very strongly.

The basic understanding
of pilot error is...

..they, the pilots, messed it up.

They made a mistake. They completely
went...off the rails.

We certainly made a mistake.

We both made mistakes.

Certainly not deliberately.
And...the question

that WE would like answered
is WHY did we make those mistakes?

ARCHIVE: David McClelland had been
hoping to resume his flying career

with British Midland.

He also attacked
the media's selective coverage

of the investigator's report.

It contains a great number
of criticisms.

Some are directed at us,
some are directed elsewhere.

I cannot begin to tell you
of the frustration

I feel that these other criticisms
have been given less press coverage

than have those directed against
Kevin and myself.

The accident investigation report,

whilst it mentioned the actions
of the pilots,

actually focused more on
the technical failure

that led to the engine failing
in the first place,

but also in terms of
flight deck design,

the ergonomics and the training

that led the crew
to make the decision that they did.

NEWSREEL: Among its recommendations,
the report says that

television cameras should be
installed in the tails of aircraft

to give an accurate view
of external problems.

The stories of Kegworth very much
tend to focus on the error

that was made by the crew, but
actually, there were many lessons

to be learned
from that accident,

and there's been many changes across
the industry as a consequence of it.

NEWSREEL: Mrs O'Hagan's ankles
were almost severed in the impact.

She still has to use a wheelchair
to go shopping,

and she's had to give up
her perfume franchise.

My right leg,

we couldn't get it into a position
that it was...

..easier to walk on...

..and the pain levels
were very high,

so they decided I'd be better off
having an amputee.

What we realised from our research
at Kegworth

was that a lot of the occupants
had broken their legs,

couldn't walk, and therefore
if there had been a fire,

couldn't have got out the plane.

NEWSREEL: A research team quickly
embarked on the most detailed study

yet of air crash survivors.

Every survivor was photographed
and interviewed.

Every injury, including minor cuts
and bruises, was logged.

Because of the close proximity of
the Kegworth accident to Nottingham,

where Professor Angus Wallace
did his work,

it meant that we learnt
a huge amount about

what happens in severe accidents
like aircraft accidents.

The height and weight of
one passenger from the centre

of the plane, and the position
he was sitting in,

were added to recreate
his exact movements

during the split-second crash.

That information has had a profound
effect around the world

in terms of aircraft design,

but also in terms of
the procedures we use

to teach people about things
like the brace position.

The further they investigated
the Kegworth crash,

the more critical they became
over cabin safety.

NEWSREEL: Under impact conditions,
the design of the seats

and the restraint systems can have
a significant effect on survival.

The objective we set was to try

and make future air crashes safer.

For the brace for impact position,

we recommend that the feet
are placed

on the ground
slightly behind the knees.

At 20G, roughly the force of
the Kegworth crash,

the legs on the rear dummy
move forward on impact,

but only slightly,

and the flailing of the arms,
which caused so many fractures

in Kegworth, is much less.

We all, the whole research team,

felt we were doing
something special.

We can't bring people back,

but we can do something
to make life better in the future.

The people in Kegworth
and round that area

were just magnificent to us,
absolutely.

They brought us presents.
They took...

I mean, they didn't have to do that,
but they did.

They did. And we're grateful.

We've great respect for the people
who helped us,

and the rescue service as well.

You think that's what you're
there for because that's your job.

That's your job,
to get them people out.

How it all came together,

the people that were in their cars
that night,

and people from Kegworth town came.

They, they...
Because it was so close.

They saw this plane coming down
and they came in their cars...

..and they were helping.

So it's fantastic, you know.

You can't believe

how people come together.

Come on.

It was not possible
to put a memorial by the M1.

It was too dangerous.

So the soil was brought from
the air crash site,

tonnes of it, to here,

so that it could form part of
the memorial garden.

As the parish clerk, I had to
organise the actual printing

of the names on the memorial.

That was one of the hardest things
that I had to do,

because obviously I had to
type out the names.

And of course, every single one

of those people had passed away.

And I found it extremely difficult.
I kept trying to type them,

and I had to stop
because it upset me so much,

thinking that those...

..each of those names was one person
that had died in the disaster.

There's never, ever one reason
for an accident to occur.

I don't put the blame onto anyone
or any company or anything.

It was something that was a
multitude of things and it happened.

And I'm only too thankful
that Sonya and myself are alive,

that I can tell my story.

If it can help anybody else
for the ones who

their members of their family
died on the aircraft,

if this...is just a way of letting
them know they're not forgotten.