The Kegworth Air Disaster | British Midland flight 92

On the 8th of January 1989, A Boing 737-400 from British Midlands Airways suffered a horrific accident after diversion to East Midlands Airport. This is the story about what happened on BMI flight 92.

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Links:



BAC 1-11: @ Phillip Capper

Shorts 360: @ Karsten Palt

737-300: @ Dylan Ashe

British Midland 737-400: @ Aero Icarus

37-400: @ Łukasz Golowanow


Donnington Hall: @ John Horner

Cabin: @ GETTY

737-300 Engine: @ wikimedia

CFM-56: @ David Monniaux


Crash Site: @ PA Archive/PA Images

Crash Site 2: @ PA Archive/PA Images

Crash Site 3: @ AAIB
AAIB Final Report 4/90

Crash Site 4: @ PA Archive/PA Images

Engine Wreckage: @ University of Bielefeld



Pilots 1: @ GETTY


Brace: @ MATT DUNHAM/AP

Camera 1: @ Manu Venkat / AirlineReporter

Camera 2: @ FLIR Systems

00:00 - Intro
01:08 - Chapter 1: Flight Overview
01:45 - Chapter 2: Upgrades
04:21 - Chapter 3: The Flight Crew
05:18 - Chapter 4: Difference Training
06:17 - Chapter 5: Takeoff
07:23 - Chapter 6: First Sign of Issues
09:40 - Chapter 7: Engine Number Two Fire?
11:31 - Chapter 8: Problem Solved?
12:05 - Chapter 9: A Call to The Company
12:47 - Chapter 10: The Customer is Always Right
14:13 - Chapter 11: Concerned Passengers
15:32 - Chapter 12: Increasing Workload
17:06 - Chapter 13: Situation Review
17:39 - Chapter 14: Final Vectors
18:54 - Chapter 15: Realisations
20:05 - Chapter 16: The Sum of All Fears
21:01 - Chapter 17: Investigations Begin
22:41 - Chapter 18: The Investigation: Vibrations and Smoke
24:27 - Chapter 19: The Investigation: Engine Testing Oversights
26:59 - Chapter 20: The Investigation: Crew Resource Management (CRM)
30:03 - Chapter 21: Lines of Communication
31:54 - Final Chapter: Camera Systems
32:39 - Outro

[JohnWilliams-lcby]

It's worth a note after all this time, that people on the motorway, stopped, arranged a human chain to help the walking wounded, protected the scene by using car headlights to create a stop line across the motor way and rounded up and deployed as many car fire extinguishers as they could find. The emergency crews were quite impressed by what the public had achieved by the time they arrived.

[jaygill]

I was one of the first people to arrive at the crash scene at 4 years old with my grandad. He left me in the camper while he boarded the wreckage and rescued some of the passengers and crew. He received a bravery award for it which is still on his living room wall.

[NomenNescio]

Unlike current TV-productions, the lack of artificial drama is really refreshing.

And when combined with the depth of the technical information we have a truly top quality production!

[aaron]

Part of my standard passenger safety briefing in the aircraft I flew was to tell passengers to speak up if they saw, heard, smelled or felt anything they thought was unusual. On a couple occasions passengers did indeed point things out that they were unsure about. I have also summoned flight attendants to point out snow buildup on a wing prior to take off, just in case the pilots didn't realize it was happening. Be proactive in your own safety, it may save your life.

[witwisniewski]

I did report an unusual detail on a trans-Pacific flight. I noticed a fluid seeping out of an engine cowling near its front, and trailing all the way to the back of the cowling. I called cabin crew who listened to me in detail, they asked if I may be seeing water condensation and I replied that it looks like a heavy oil. Shortly later, the FO was leaning over me to see my view. The company engineering was contacted and they determined it was an overfilled oil reservoir that was venting excess oil out an its air vent. The cabin crew came back to thank me and explained what actions were taken. There were no further issues so the solution was probably correct. I think this was Delta.

[courteaux]

My friend was on this flght. He survived, but was only able to tell me the details years later. Trapped with broken bones, passing out repeatedly screaming in pain, covered in blood and vomit in total darkness and distress etc. Startling details of what it was like to survive a plane crash. He still has physical and mental scars. He was serving as a soldier in Northern Ireland at the time.

[richardwyse]

Instead of accident reports moldering on a dusty shelf, Mentour Pilot makes these incidents avaialble to actually wondering if he should be nominated for a flight safety an important contribution.

[briansmith]

I was on the M1 that night just south of Nottingham. We stopped to help. I will never forget that night. It's great now to know exactly what went wrong. So sorry for the loss of life that night.

[biologyboy]

I had started work as a radiographer at the Leicester Royal Infirmary in August 1988 not long before this crash in early 1989 . A lot of the passengers were brought to the LRI and some went to Nottingham. Many of the Injuries were really rather horrific such as traumatic amputations of extremities and complex open fractures. Also very serious head and abdominal injuries. The bruises are something I won’t ever forget many were massive but also very well delineated in odd shapes and patterns from striking certain objects in the plane.The passengers clothes were generally in a terrible mess also and many had friction burn marks on them from the clothes they wore and this also showed up as some odd patterns created by the texture and buttons zips of the clothes they wore. I I recall later being told that a lot of seats had failed and broken away causing the majority of the crush injuries.I think almost everyone I saw and radiographed had some limb damage. Later on we also sadly had to do X-rays on the bodies of the dead as well as parts of bodies to look for foreign objects such as pieces of metal from the crash to aid the investigation. Really a terrible tragedy and like many should never happened with better training. RIP to the victims.

[Lisa-oedo]

As a passenger, it has been so beneficial watching these videos to learn what incidents are like from the pilots' perspective. If I saw an engine sparking and then the captain started talking about a diversion, I would naturally assume he knew what the engines were doing and just misspoke which engine was misbehaving. This series has taught me to pay attention and sometimes the passengers will be in a position to see more of what's going on. Never be afraid to speak up.

[-DC-]

The Captain involved honestly thought to his grave he had done everything he possibly could to save all onboard, He was destroyed by this accident was a wonderful guy just a horrible series of events.

[karlrschneider]

As a commercial pilot of some 50 years, and an aircraft engineer, I want to say your commentary, analysis and explanations are very good. Thanks.

[lanpingpug]

My cousin was just starting out as a nurse and this happened in her first week, on her second day working at the hospital. She said that after seeing the injuries of some of the passengers, she thinks she can deal with anything life throws at her. Open and complex fractures, burns, blood everywhere and people screaming for their relatives who were dead. One man's eye was hanging out on his cheek. She said she expected more casualties as the staff were told it was a big plane that had crashed but then it really hit her that a lot of the passengers were dead.

[vonduus]

I just watched the analysis of this crash on the National Geograhic channel, before I watched this one. On a scale from one to ten, the NG analysis gets an 8; your analysis gets a 10. Your analysis is free from any sensationalism, it only touches upon what is pertinent to the problem at hand, and the way you put us all into the minds of the pilots is just very illuminating. Keep up the good work.

[izzieb]

This videos are always so good - better and more accurate than the overly dramatic documentaries on TV. Thank you for making these.

[fillipo]

I'm blown away with the experience and knowledge of this dude. And presented in a 2nd language amazingly. Wow

[gasgas]

As you advise at the end of your excellent video: I was a passenger landing on an internal flight at Lagos, Nigeria. I looked out of my window and when the pilot applied the brakes, sparks and flames came out of the undercarriage brakes. As Lagos airport had some burnt out wrecked passenger aircraft parked next to the runway I thought it would be interesting to see if the pilot was interested, or if they just accept crashes and fires as routine. I waited till all the other passengers had disembarked and for the pilot to come out. I advised him of the sparks and flames and was very pleased indeed with his reaction. He was genuinely shocked. "This plane isn't going anywhere till that is fixed" he said - and I could see the blood drain from his face. Without being racist, I can honestly say I have never seen a brown man turn pale before. Apparently Shell Oil commissioned a survey to look at routine maintenance done on internal Nigerian airlines and could only find one "with any discernable form of routine maintenance".

[ellenbryn]

Somehow in all the talk about pilots' actions and left and right engines, one thing that's often forgotten about the Kegworth disaster is that it all started with a brand-new Boeing plane whose engines had been so inadequately engineered/tested that one developed fatigue cracks and failed catastrophically within a few months.
I mean, sure, pilots have to deal with engine failures, but even though they hadn't been given adequate training, maybe in time the pilots would've gotten to know the plane better and figured out for themselves key details like "the air conditioning is coming from the other engine now" and "the vibration indicator actually works" if the engine hadn't failed so soon after delivery.

[TIMMEH]

I was travelling up the M1 when this accident happened and got stuck in the traffic jam it caused for hours, but it wasn't until I got home later that I found out what had happened. Seriously a sad series of events. I also remember an interview with the pilot afterwards and thinking at the time what a broken man he was.

[jmagner]

Great job! I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a fan of the US Television Show "Air Disasters, " and, like you, they work off of official reports and strive to get the facts absolutely perfect. You've covered some of the same incidents that they have... but when YOU do it, I end up understanding what happened and why so much more than from watching that show. NetFlix really needs to give you your own program!