This is England’s M1 Motorway, near the village of Kegworth in Leicestershire. On the 8th of January 1989 at a little after 8:00 p.m. a Boeing 737 British Midlands flight number 92 crashed here as it was trying to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport only a few hundred meters away. It was later revealed that the pilot, Captain Kevin Hunt and his co-pilot, First Officer David McClelland had made a fatal error.
A fan blade have ruptured causing the left engine to catch fire but unable to see for themselves and not informed correctly by the flight crew, Hunt and McClelland switched off the right engine by mistake. The confusion was due to a recent re-design of the air conditioning which led them to assume that that was where the smoke and spark is coming from.
With both engines then out of action, they tried desperately to keep the airplane in the air. The 737 missed Kegworth but hit the embankment of England’s main motorway causing the plane to break into three pieces.
A driver saw the aircraft on its way down and slowed using their hazard lights to alert at the motorists and almost certain preventing injuries on the ground. That with 126 people on board, including eight flight crews of this 47 died 39 at the scene and eight later on. Out of the 79 survivors, 74 were seriously injured including Captain Hunt and First Officer McClelland.
It was revealed that though Hunt is a very experienced pilot, he’d only had twenty three hours of flying time in this particular type of 737-400. McClelland had only 53 hours and each had received just a day in the classroom training on the instruments.
A memorial was created in Kegworth Village cemetery as was garden using soil taken from the crash site. The memorial was dedicated to those who have died those who were injured and those who took part in the rescue operation.
If the surviving victims recovered from their injuries an investigation was held, 31 recommendations were made for safety improvements. Captain Hunt and First Officer McClelland were later dismissed, following criticism of their involvement in the accident. While the first person on the scene, Graham Pearson later received 50,000 pounds in damages for the post-traumatic stress experienced as a result of the three hours he spent in the wreckage helping survivors.
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