James Thain

James Thain (8 February 1921 – 6 August 1975) was a British aviator and former Royal Air Force officer. He was command pilot aboard BEA Flight 609 when it crashed in the 1958 Munich air disaster.

Military career

Thain started his career as an Royal Air Force sergeant. He was later promoted to warrant officer and was given an emergency commission in as an acting pilot officer in April 1944.[1] He was promoted pilot officer on probation in September that year.[2] He was subsequently made flight lieutenant in May 1948,[3] receiving a permanent commission in that rank in 1952.[4] He retired from the RAF to join British European Airways (BEA).

The Munich incident

Photograph of two-engine turboprop aircraft with three vertical stabilisers parked on snow-covered ramp.
Thain's aircraft at Riem airport shortly before the incident.

On 6 February 1958, Thain was pilot in command of an Airspeed AS.57 Ambassador (Lord Burghley, G-ALZU) flying out of Munich. The aircraft was carrying the Manchester United football team back from a match in Yugoslavia.

After two failed attempts, due to problems with boost surging in one of the Ambassador's engines, Thain chose to make a third try, hoping to stay on schedule, rather than remain overnight for maintenance at Munich. The aircraft failed to take off and crashed, killing twenty-one people in all.

The German airport authorities blamed Thain for the accident at the time, saying he did not de-ice the aircraft's wings, despite eyewitness statements to the contrary. On Christmas Day 1960 he was dismissed by BEA; he spent the next decade trying to clear his name. He never flew for an airline again.[5]

It was subsequently learned slush on the runway had made it impossible for the Ambassador to gain flying speed.[6] Thain was cleared in 1968. Despite this finding, German authorities continued to blame Thain.[7][8]

Retiring to his poultry farm in southern England, Thain suffered a fatal heart attack in August 1975 at the age of 54, in Berkshire.[5]

Dramatisations

On 10 January 2006, the BBC showed a drama/documentary retelling the story in the series Surviving Disaster. However, the programme was met with criticism from former United winger Albert Scanlon, who claimed that it was full of inaccuracies despite the production having consulted him about the content of the documentary. Errors in the programme included the depiction of Jimmy Murphy giving a pre-match team talk in Belgrade, despite him being in Cardiff at the time, and the plane being shown as only half full when nearly every seat was occupied.[9]

On 6 February 2008, the 50th anniversary of the crash, UKTV History re-ran Surviving Disaster.[10]

Canadian TV series Mayday, shown on British TV as Air Crash Investigation, covered the crash in one of its episodes, which was first broadcast in December 2011.[8]

Notes

  1. ↑ London Gazette
  2. ↑ London Gazette.
  3. ↑ London Gazette
  4. ↑ London Gazette
  5. 1 2 death notice in Flight International. 14 August 1975, p. 210. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  6. ↑ Stewart, Stanley. Air Disasters (Guild Publishing, 1987), p. 86.
  7. ↑ Leroux, Marcus (30 January 2008). "Captain James Thain cleared of blame after the thawing of hostilities". The Times. London: Times Newspapers. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
  8. 1 2 MAYDAY: SEASON 11
  9. ↑ "Survivor's anger over Munich crash film". Manchester Evening News. MEN Media. 7 January 2006. Retrieved 11 October 2008.
  10. ↑ "Munich Aircrash: Disaster Season". Yesterday. UKTV. Retrieved 24 April 2011.

Sources

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