I remember 22nd August 1985 for one reason. The Manchester air disaster. A British Airtours Boeing 737, bound for Corfu, caught fire as it accelerated down the runway, killing 55 people, 53 of whom were passengers and two were crew. Most died from the effects of smoke inhalation. One reason I remember it so well was that in a few days time I was scheduled to be taking my first holiday in Corfu. Reminders of how safe air travel was meant nothing to me at the time and I remember how fearful I was as my mate and I boarded an elderly Dan Air Boeing 727 at Gatwick Airport.
I was not exactly a regular flyer at the time – no one was – and the disaster merely added to my fears. Plane crashes in the 1980s were a rarity, albeit not as rare as they are today. As our plane roared along the runway in dawn’s early light, I gripped the arm rest and said a silent prayer. Long before I had heard of it, I was employing the argument of Pascal’s Wager in the hope that if I believed in a God he might be more inclined to act in order to prevent my plane crashing in the event of an accident.
With every change in engine pitch and change in direction, I was convinced the end was nigh. In the end, it turned out to be as uneventful a flight as I had ever been on. We landed in Corfu airport safely and on time. My mate and I were, it transpired, in far greater danger walking the short distance to the village room we would be staying in for the next two weeks. It was around that time I added the term planespotter to my life of being a trainspotter, as well as having a ghoulish interest in plane and train crashes.
I was always fascinated by trains and could watch them pass by for hours on end. I had a vague understanding of how trains, steam or diesel, worked. There was no great mystery to it. With planes, there remains a sense of bafflement. “How does that get into the air?” A gigantic metal tube, weighing over 400 tons in the case of a Boeing 747. That makes no sense to someone who doesn’t understand the theory – THE THEORY FFS! – of lift. These days, I understand that a theory, as in gravity and evolution, is a fact, but I still gasp in wonder when a plane somehow gets into the air and stays there. That, I believe, is why so many of us gather near airport runways and watch live feeds of planes landing and taking off because it all looks miraculous.
Gradually, I got over my irrational fear of flying and came to embrace it, to actively look forward to it. I now know what the bings and bongs mean, why engine pitch changes, why the wings change shape en route, that the thump you feel as you approach the airport is merely the landing gear coming down. And, above all, what happened at Manchester in 1985 was likely a one-off and won’t happen again.
After two weeks under the Ionian sun, my mate and I left our room early in the morning to catch our return flight to Gatwick. We walked through a classic Corfu storm, all torrential rain, bangs and crashes and an incredible light show. Arriving in the terminal building, like two drowned rats, we checked the arrivals board. ‘DIVERTED TO ATHENS’ was all over it. No plane would dare land in these conditions. Clearing security, we went into the departure lounge and, to our astonishment, planes had landed. To our further astonishment, ours was among them. The other airlines had played safe, Dan Air’s flights were all on time. No wonder they used to call Dan Air Dan Dare.
Boarding another ancient Boeing 727, with its decrepit furnishings, I did not expect us to take off straight away. If anything, the weather had worsened. After Manchester, they’d just wait, right? No chance. Then, the captain came on the tannoy:
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to this flight to London Gatwick. I’m sorry about the weather. It will be a bit bumpy on the way up but it’s nothing the plane can’t handle.” This was vaguely reassuring, but then came this gem. “Normally, given the wind direction we’d take off in a northerly direction towards the town, but we’re a little heavy today so instead we are taking off toward the southerly end of the runway that stretches to the sea.”
I knew that planes take off into the wind in order to achieve better lift, but today we would be taking off downwind because – by now my brain was working overtime – we would end up flying directly into the town and not over it if we went the conventional way. Christ.
And so began what appeared to be the slowest and longest take-off roll I had ever endured, followed by a climb that was barely discernible at first. I looked out of the window, with rear-mounted engines screaming behind me, and I swear I saw the legendary Mouse Island about ten feet below me. With that, we disappeared into thick cloud and were battered from pillar to post in the storm we appeared to have flown right into. If I was nervous flyer before, I was a terrified one now. But nothing happened. Eventually, we emerged the other side of the storm and into blazing sunlight and, somehow, given the painfully slow initial ascent, we were now high above the clouds.
For people of my vintage, air disasters were, if not common, relatively frequent and it felt as if there was at least the small possibility we might be involved in one. The words Manchester disaster and Corfu were, for a few years, indelibly imprinted on my mind. It unnerved all of us who were wary of flying.
Incredibly, the Manchester disaster happened 39 years ago today, 53 people who were going to a beautiful Greek island for a well-deserved holiday and two members of the crew perished. These days when I fly anywhere, my mind doesn’t go back to 1985 and how I felt at the time. I think it’s partly because planes are even safer today and also that as I lurch into old age I no longer give a fuck. Whatever will be, will be, and all that.
I also realised that actually I was never scared of flying. It was the possibility of crashing I worried about. Happily, no more. After every disaster, the flying industry learns and makes improvements, as with disasters on the railways. Planes don’t just fall out of the sky for no reason. It requires a human being to mess up for that to happen. That rarely happens nowadays. Thank goodness. Keep flying.
