A plaque at Old Trafford Football Ground commemorating the Munich air disaster

The Airspeed Ambassador G-ALZU burning at Munich

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League Fixtures (1958-1969)

British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on February 6, 1958, operated by British European Airways as a \"Elizabethan\" class Airspeed Ambassador charter aircraft G-ALZU 'Lord Burghley', carrying players and backroom staff of Manchester United F.C. more...

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, plus a number of journalists and supporters, crashed in a blizzard on its third attempt to take off from Munich-Riem airport. The incident was known as the Munich air disaster.

Twenty-three of the 43 passengers on board the aircraft died in the disaster.

Background

The European Cup had been contested since 1955, although no English club took part in the very first tournament on account of Football League rules. Manchester United entered the 1956-57 tournament and reached the semi-finals, being knocked out by eventual winners Real Madrid; they were thus one of the favourites for the 1957-58 tournament. Domestic league matches were played on Saturdays and European matches were played in midweek, so although air travel was risky at the time, it was the only practical choice if United were to fulfil their league fixtures. Their team was known as the Busby Babes, a reference to their manager Matt Busby and to the average age of the players, which was unusually young.

The club had chartered an aeroplane to fly them home from their European Cup match against the Yugoslavian team Red Star Belgrade, which ended in a 3-3 draw (United won the tie 5-4 on aggregate). The take-off from Belgrade was delayed for an hour as the United player Johnny Berry had lost his passport, then the plane made a scheduled stop in Munich to refuel.

The crash

Captain James Thain, the pilot, tried to take off twice, but both attempts were aborted due to a problem with the engines. When a third take off was attempted, at 3:04pm, the plane failed to gain adequate height and crashed into the fence surrounding the airport, then into a house, which was unoccupied at the time.

Although the crash was originally blamed on pilot error, it was subsequently found to have been caused by the build-up of slush towards the ends of the runway, causing deceleration of the aircraft and preventing safe flying speed from being attained. During the take off the aircraft had attained a speed of 117 kt but on entering the slush speed dropped to 105 kt, too slow for flight with not enough runway remaining to abort the take off. Aircraft with tail-wheel undercarriages had not been greatly affected by slush, due to the geometry of these undercarriages in relation to the aircraft's centre of gravity, but newer types, such as the Ambassador, with nosewheel landing-gear and the main wheels behind the centre of gravity were found to be vulnerable. The accident resulted in the instigation of operating limits for the amount of slush build-up permitted on runways.