Time February 6, 1958 Heavy snow, at Munich Airport in West Germany, British Airways Europa Airlines Flight 609, ready to take home the United team members from here.
It is no exaggeration to say that they were the most famous athletes in the world at that time, and the reason for this was that due to the postponement of manchester United's match against Wolves on February 9, the entire Manchester United team had to switch to a plane, traveling between Belgrade, Serbia, and Manchester, England, and the distance between the two cities exceeded the maximum mileage of the aircraft they flew, so the aircraft needed to stop at Munich Airport and refuel once, and the aircraft was a luxury airliner with twin-engine propellers, Elizabeth.
There are 44 people in the cabin of the aircraft, 21 of them are Manchester United players, and the captain responsible for flying this flight is James Tyne, a 36-year-old former British Air Force pilot, his flight record is flawless, of course, such achievements, inseparable from his experience and skills, before this take-off, the captain also carefully checked the aircraft.
The other co-pilot is Kenneth Lehman, 38 years old, ace pilot during World War II, whose position is also Elizabeth's captain, but this flight served as co-pilot, and his seniority within the airline is higher than that of Captain Tyne, and he has a very good relationship with Captain Tyne, so they exchanged seats with each other after consultation before the plane took off, although it violated the company's regulations, but for these two top pilots, no matter what position they are, they can cope with it freely.
After everything was ready, Flight 609 began to taxi on the runway, but not long after the taxi, the plane suddenly stopped, because the captain found that the engine speed was not right, the engine had over-accelerated, and for safety reasons, the captain gave up the takeoff.
In this way they need to return to the take-off site to start over, after getting the consent of the air traffic control, Flight 609 returned to the runway take-off point to start trying a second take-off, but this time during the take-off, the aircraft was about to reach the decisive speed and the engine was over-accelerated, seeing this scene, the captain still decided to give up the take-off, the same thing happened for the second time in a row, it seems that the problem is not an accidental phenomenon They need to find out the reason to be able to fly with confidence, and then the airport technician was invited to learn that the left engine of the aircraft had over-accelerated , causing the pressure to exceed the upper limit of the instrument by 60Pa, and this phenomenon is not a big problem.
The technician explained that the reason is that the higher altitude of the airport affects the air pressure of the aircraft, but the problem is quite common and there is no need to worry at all, as long as the throttle is slightly reduced when there is excessive acceleration, the horsepower is reduced, and after the pressure drops, the slow throttle is re-accelerated to allow the engine to accelerate at full strength, so that it can take off normally, the pilot after having this plan, it began the third take-off, when the aircraft taxied to the middle of the runway, the engine over-accelerated as promised, and the captain first reduced the horsepower according to the technician's method After the pressure subsided, they began to accelerate at full strength, and sure enough, the sound of the two engines tended to stabilize, and the speed of the aircraft soon reached the V1 decisive speed, which meant that they could no longer stop safely, but then the aircraft suddenly and inexplicably descended to the end of the runway when it reached the V2 lifting wheel 119 knots off the ground.
Since there was no take-off distance, the result was that the aircraft rushed directly out of the guardrail at the end of the runway and collided with a house and fuel depot 300 meters away, and then an explosion ignited a fire.
This is known as the football ten tragedies of the Munich air disaster, the accident caused 7 players 3 Manchester United officials and 8 reporters, as well as the co-pilot and other 3 personnel, a total of 22 people died on the spot, in addition to the known "genius player" Duncan Edwards, 15 days after the accident due to serious injuries and died, it can be said that this air crash made the king of football at that time, manchester United team instantly fell Very unfortunate, but also caused everyone to pay great attention to it.
The cause of the accident arrived at the scene at about 10 o'clock in the evening of the crash, and the first clue they saw here that caused the accident was that the wing was covered with a thick layer of ice, and strangely, the surface of the wing behind the engine did not have this phenomenon, but this did not prevent the investigators from deducing that they believed that the wing of the crashed aircraft had frozen before the crash, and the reason why the wing surface behind the engine was not frozen was that the aircraft was in the process of taking off. The propeller blew away the ice at this location, so the cause of the accident was mainly the freezing of the wings, for which the investigators began further inspections.
On the morning of the accident, they saw a 50-meter extension of tire marks at the end of the runway of the plane crash, which showed that the aircraft had never left the ground, and this clue made the investigators more convinced that the ice in the wings was the cause of the accident, in other words, the captain's negligence caused the accident, and then they told the captain Tyne of this result, if it was determined that the wing ice caused then the captain would bear the main responsibility.
But Captain Tyne did not agree with this statement, because he got off the plane to check the wing after the first failed take-off, although he did not open the de-icing system, but the surface of the wing only melted snow and did not freeze, and for the cause of the crash of the aircraft, Captain Tyn's view is that a large amount of snow remains at the end of the runway, so that the aircraft can not take off, that is to say, the airport management is not in place, and the snow on the runway is not cleared in time to cause the accident. German investigators did not agree, and at the subsequent hearing, they came up with another piece of evidence that the captain could not refute, that is, a reporter took a photo of the plane before Flight 609 took off.
In the photo of the aircraft's wings covered with white objects, they believe that this is a layer of snow or ice, in addition to they rule out the possibility of the engine over-acceleration caused by the accident, because one of the engines of this aircraft is equipped with the earliest flight recorder, the data shows that the engine has enough power at take-off to allow the aircraft to take off normally, in the face of these evidences, Captain Tyne is powerless to refute, so a year after the accident, the German government issued an official investigation report, Accusing the captain of negligence caused the crash and causing 23 deaths, which caused Captain Tyne to lose his reputation, but Captain Tyne was convinced that the root cause was not the wing ice, as an experienced pilot, he knew that the wing icing would not make the plane speed drop sharply when taxiing, and the reason for this to happen, he firmly believed that it must be snow at the end of the runway, of course, there is also a question here, why the snow on the runway only made the Flight 609 slow down? Is there anything different about this plane? Not to mention, the rest of the airport had taken off at about two-thirds of the runway, and Flight 609 had to take off slowly due to the engine supercharging problem, which required the plane to glide to the end of the snowy runway, and because of this information, Captain Tyne began his own investigation.
For the Munich air disaster that has been decided, how should the captain overturn the case? He first needed to find the loopholes in the evidence in the hands of the German investigators, and then at his insistence, he found an important witness, who was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the crash, who climbed on the wing when he arrived at the scene, so he was very clear about the surface of the wing, he saw that the wing surface of the crashed aircraft was not frozen, and there were also airport controllers, whose testimony also proved that it was a problem with the snow at the end of the runway, when the two airport controllers at that time saw the plane taxiing to the middle of the runway The nose of the aircraft began to lift, which is the standard take-off procedure Everything is normal, but then the nose of the aircraft is inexplicably lowered, indicating that when the aircraft is at the end of the runway, its speed begins to decline, causing this phenomenon should not be icing, but related to the snow on the runway.
However, because the two airport controllers were both interns at the time, their testimony was not accepted by the investigators, but in addition to this information, another person found a loophole in the German investigator's report that the wings ice near the propeller had been blown off, and this person was the wife of captain Tyne.
She was the first woman to obtain a first-class honours degree in chemistry physics and mathematics at the University of Bristol, and after her in-depth investigation, she obtained a sample of the chemical extinguishing agent that extinguished the wreckage of the burning aircraft at that time, the main ingredient in this sample was sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as soda powder, and when it was mixed with snow water, the temperature on the night of the crash could not make the solution freeze, and because the firefighters on the night of the crash mainly sprayed fire extinguishing agents on the engine, so there was no ice near the engine. This overturns the relevant evidence in the Report of the German Investigators.
After having these key scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony, the conclusion that the wing was frozen began to be questioned by many people, and the captain Tyne submitted the new evidence to the German government, hoping that they could restart the investigation, but the captain was still too simple, in addition to refusing to re-investigate, they also accused the captain Tyne of violating the airline regulations and the co-pilot privately changing positions, so in 1961, the former British Air Force pilot was fired by the company, in fact, the airline is not because, Violating this rule, which was basically not observed at the time, but fearing that when the passengers heard his broadcast, they would think of the Munich air disaster in 1958, which was a great blow to Tyne at that time, and for the German investigators, they only wanted to find someone to end all this as soon as possible, so the captain Tyne became the back of the accident, but he did not stop there, and then kept writing to the British and German governments to promote the reopening of the investigation into the cause of the crash.
Finally, in the 7th year of the accident, his efforts were answered, the German government agreed to re-investigate the Munich air disaster, in this investigation, they confirmed that the snow at the end of the runway would slow down the aircraft and was very similar to Flight 609, but the investigators instead more harshly accused that the captain Tyne and the co-pilot exchanged seats to lead to the expansion of the results, that is, the pot had to be carried by the captain, for this result, although the British government and airlines at that time knew that the captain was wronged, but no one stood up for it. It wasn't until nine years after the accident that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson attended a Manchester United match in 1967, where he referred to the Munich air disaster, while believing that Captain Tyne had been treated unfairly.
It is precisely because of this sentence that the conclusion of the Munich air disaster once again triggered a controversy, the British investigators immediately launched a detailed investigation, they analyzed the photos of the wings that appeared to be covered by heavy snow before the take-off of Flight 609, and found that the white material on the surface of the wings was not snow, but the reflection corresponding to the shooting angle, which in turn showed that there were obvious loopholes in the Conclusion of the German investigation, but even so, the German side still did not admit that there was snow at the end of the runway that caused the accident. Because this would represent serious negligence on the part of german airports.
In this way, 11 years after the accident, the British government officially declared captain Tyne innocent, but the airline did not let him return to work, and the German side has not withdrawn the charges against him, which caused a lot of pressure and burden to the captain Tyne, and finally died at the age of 54, so many people believe that in addition to the 23 people who were difficult, there was a 24th person who was captain Tyne