British Airtours Flight 28M, a Boeing 737–236 series 1, G-BGJL, named "River Orrin", carrying 131 passengers and 6 crew on a charter flight to Corfu International Airport in Greece, caught fire before take-off at Manchester International Airport, England on 22 August 1985 with the loss of 55 lives.
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At 0612 hrs, G-BGJL, carrying 131 passengers and 6 crew on a charter flight to Corfu, began its take-off from runway 24 at Manchester with the co-pilot handling. About thirty-six seconds later, as the airspeed passed 125 knots, the left engine suffered an uncontained failure, which punctured a wing fuel tank access panel. Fuel leaking from the wing ignited and burnt as a large plume of fire trailing directly behind the engine. The crew heard a 'thud', and believing that they had suffered a tyre-burst or bird-strike, abandoned the take-off immediately, intending to clear the runway to the right. They had no indication of fire until 9 seconds later when the left engine fire warning occurred. After an exchange with Air Traffic Control, during which the fire was confirmed, the commander warned his crew of an evacuation from the right side of the aircraft, by making a broadcast over the cabin address system, and brought the aircraft to a halt in the entrance to link Delta. As the aircraft turned off, a wind of 7 knots from 250° carried the fire onto and around the rear fuselage. After the aircraft stopped the hull was penetrated rapidly and smoke, possibly with some flame transients, entered the cabin through the aft right door which was opened shortly before the aircraft came to a halt. Subsequently, a fire developed within the cabin. Despite the prompt attendance of the airport fire service, the aircraft was destroyed and 55 persons on board lost their lives.
Aircraft Accident Report 8/88 by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), Department of Transport, London stated that the cause of the accident was an uncontained failure of the left engine, initiated by a failure of the No 9 combustor can which had been the subject of a repair. A section of the combustor can, which was ejected forcibly from the engine, struck and fractured an underwing fuel tank access panel. The fire which resulted in developed catastrophically, primarily because of the adverse orientation of the parked aircraft relative to the wind, even though the wind was light. The report has also listed the major contributing factors for the accident as-the vulnerability of the wing tank access panels to impact, a lack of any effective provision for fighting major fires inside the aircraft cabin, the vulnerability of the aircraft hull to external fire and the extremely toxic nature of the emissions from the burning interior materials. The AAIB concluded, “the major cause of the fatalities was rapid incapacitation due to the inhalation of the dense toxic/irritant smoke atmosphere within the cabin, aggravated by evacuation delays caused by a forward right door malfunction and restricted access to the exits.” The injuries and fatalities caused are as given below:
Injuries Crew Passengers Others
Fatal 2 53* -
Serious - 15 -
Minor/None 4 63 1(fireman)
(* Including the man rescued after 33 minutes who died 6 days later in hospital.)
Perhaps the most striking feature of this accident was the fact that although the aircraft never became airborne and was brought to a halt in a position which allowed an extremely rapid fire-service attack on the external fire, it resulted in 55 deaths. The report by the AAIB ruled that the seat layout around emergency exits hampered attempts to evacuate the plane as deadly fumes soon spread and rear escape chutes could not be operated.
However, the legacy of the disaster was a host of new safety regulations. Despite of the fact that accident caused a great loss, the aftermath of the accident played a great role in bringing the commercial aviation to its present state and can be considered as the breakthrough to the passenger safety in commercial flights as it paved the way to better passenger safety regulations and led to many changes in the evacuation procedures of aircraft. The improvements to the passenger safety since 1985 are-positioning an aircraft on fire downwind of the fuselage, more windsocks on the airfield to indicate wind direction, providing the flight crew with an external view of the aircraft, unobstructed access to emergency exits, strengthening of external fuel tank access panels, aircraft cabin materials to be fire retardant, etc. Hence, it was a defining moment in civil aviation history. To borrow the words of Chris Yates, an aviation analyst, “Safety has got an awful lot better in the last 25 years. So, the likelihood of this type of incident happening again is quite remote.”
References
1.Aircraft Accident Report 8/88, Report on the accident to Boeing 737–236 series 1, G-BGJL at Manchester International Airport on 22 August 1985, Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), Department of Transport, London, 1989, ISBN 0 11 550892 9
2." Lessons learned from 1985 Manchester runway disaster", BBC News, 23 August 2010
3."Jet disaster survivors meet pilot 25 years on", Manchester Evening News, 23 August 2010
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