New Tests May Clear Pilot
BONN, September 1. The West German Transport Minister has decided to reopen the inquiry into the 1958 Munich crash of a British airliner in which 23 persons—including eight Manchester United Foot-ballers—-died.
The decision to reopen the inquiry was made after the new evidence in tests at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. The original German inquiry found that Captain James Thain, pilot of the B.E.A. Elizabethan airliner which crashed, was to blame because he did not satisfy himself that the aircraft’s
wings were free from ice or that the runway was fit for use in the prevailing conditions. After a British Inquiry had also found that he had not taken sufficient steps to satisfy himself that the wings were free from ice and snow, Captain Thain was dismissed by B.E.A. He is a poultry-farmer in Berkshire; He has not given up his fight to prove that he was unjustly dismissed. Recent tests at Farnborough with a plane similar to the crashed Elizabethan, showed that no pilot could have successfully got the plane off the ground from a runway as deeply covered in slush as was the Munich airport.
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Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30535, 2 September 1964, Page 6
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193New Tests May Clear Pilot Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30535, 2 September 1964, Page 6
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