Crash Pilot Cleared

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32012, 12 June 1969, Page 13

Crash Pilot Cleared

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

LONDON, June 11.

A former British European Airways pilot, Mr James Thain, has strongly criticised West German authorities for failing to call witnesses who might have exonerated him from blame for the 1958 Munich air crash in which 23 passengers, including eight members of the Manchester United football team, died.

Official inquiries in 1959, and again in 1967, blamed Captain Thain for taking off with iced wings, and said thick slush on the runway was a further cause of the accident. Yesterday a British inquiry

team attributed the crash only to runway slush, and said that Captain Thain was not at fault

On the British Broadcasting Corporation’s television programme, “24 Hours,” last night, Captain Thain said: “It is extraordinary that nine people whose evidence would have spoken against the formation of ice . . . were excluded from the investigation.”

One uncalled key witness was Captain Reinhardt Meyer, who now instructs pilots at San Diego, California. Interviewed by telephone on the television programme he said he had inspected the plane’s wreckage minutes after the crash and had found no signs of icing, either on the fuselage or on any part of the wing, though one of his first thoughts had been that icing might have been the cause.

Captain Meyer said he voluntarily wrote to the West

German Government department dealing with air crashes telling them of his findings, but he was never called to testify at the investigations. Captain Meyer said last night: “It wasn’t until years later that I read the report of the inquiry and Was surprised about the findings, knowing that the Government investigators did not appear until five or six hours after the crash.”

Captain Thain said any question of seeking compensation from the West German authorities for his 10-year fight to clear his name was a matter for the AttorneyGeneral, who now had all the facts before him. A farmer since he was dismissed by British European Airways after a domestic inquiry had found he had not checked for wing ice, Captain Thain commented: “I would very much like to fly again, but I think I might be too far down the runway now.”