54 Killed in 3rd Jet Crash in 3 Weeks : Engine Explodes on Takeoff in England; 83 Passengers Survive

Fifty-four people aboard a British-operated Boeing 737 jetliner were killed Thursday when one of the plane’s engines exploded and caught fire as the plane was speeding down the runway on takeoff.

Eighty-three people survived the accident, 17 of whom were hospitalized. Five were listed in critical condition with severe burns.

The accident was the third major airline disaster in three weeks and the fourth in the last 60 days. The death toll of 1,037 in the four crashes is the highest for any similar period in the history of civil aviation, authorities here said.

The plane, operated by British Airtours, a subsidiary of British Airways, was a chartered aircraft carrying tourists on a flight from this northern England industrial city to Corfu, an island in the Ionian Sea off the northwestern coast of Greece.

Modified to Carry More

With 131 passengers and a crew of six, every seat in the plane was filled. The British Airtours 737 had been modified to carry more than the usual number of passengers--114, for example, on regular British Airways 737 flights. A similar seating modification was done with the Japan Air Lines 747 that crashed in Japan last week, killing 520 people.

Accounts of survivors and statements by British Airways officials here indicated that the twin-engine jet was well into its takeoff run, but not yet airborne, when the left engine exploded and the plane caught fire as fuel in the fully loaded wing tanks ignited.

Survivors said that the plane braked violently, then swung onto a taxiway only a few hundred yards from the airport’s emergency fire-fighting unit.

Although fire trucks were on the scene almost immediately, spraying the plane with fire-suffocating foam, they were unable to extinguish flames that, in seconds, engulfed the rear section of the plane.

Secondary Explosion

Airport firefighters said they believe that fuel from the ruptured wing tanks sprayed out to the rear part of the plane and that a fuel-soaked tail section was ignited by a secondary explosion.

All who died were reportedly sitting near the rear of the plane, which survivors said filled with black smoke shortly after the plane came to a halt.

The intensity of the fire apparently prevented deployment of emergency escape chutes from the rear exits.

Rescuers said that many victims were found still strapped in their seats, although other bodies were found piled near emergency exits.

Harrowing descriptions given by survivors of the disaster and the ensuing panic inside the plane indicated that only disciplined reactions by the cabin crew and the airport’s emergency firefighting services prevented greater loss of life.

One survivor related how stewardesses grabbed some of the confused, panicked passengers as smoke enveloped the cabin and literally threw them down the emergency escape chutes.

Two of the four stewardesses were listed among the dead. The pilot and co-pilot survived.

There were tales also of heroism among the passengers. One stewardess told how a young father sitting next to an emergency exit opened the door himself, climbed out onto the wing for air, then re-entered the plane to pluck out his wife and small baby.

“People just followed them out,” said the stewardess, who was not immediately identified.

According to passenger accounts, there was a brief period of calm immediately after the initial explosion.

One survivor, David Thomas, traveling with his wife and two children who also survived, said he heard a loud bang just as the plane’s nose began to lift off the ground.

“I thought it was a burst tire at first, but then I saw fire,” he recalled. “We came to a halt, and then there was a second, muffled explosion, this time under the plane. After that, the cabin filled with smoke very fast.”

Another passenger, 20-year-old Michael Mather, said he saw the fire but initially thought it could be extinguished.

“We knew there were extinguishers on the plane and thought that they could put it out,” he said. “When the smoke came, it hit you like a brick wall.”

It was only after the plane rolled to a halt and fire began to engulf the cabin that panic broke out.

“I was virtually out the door and I couldn’t breathe, the smoke was so thick,” said Keith Middenton, a passenger in his early 20s. “There were all sorts of people behind me, shouting and screaming. People were pushing from behind, falling on the floor and getting trampled on. You could hear the shouting behind you, but there was no way you could help them.”

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrived in Manchester late Thursday to view the crash site, meet with survivors, and console relatives of the victims.

Many relatives waited hours at an airport lounge for news. An airport hangar was converted into a makeshift morgue as the painstaking process of identifying the badly charred bodies of victims began.

Manchester’s Ringway Airport, which has only one main runway, remained closed throughout the day as accident investigators picked through the burned-out hulk of the plane where it came to rest near the end of the runway.

Inside the terminal building, thousands of passengers, many of them also booked on late summer holiday charters, milled about, waiting for the airport to reopen.

Shortly after 8 p.m., cranes cleared the runway, and the airport, a major regional air traffic center, was reopened.

Earlier this year, Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority, the government body responsible for air safety in Britain, ordered all British-registered commercial aircraft to install special fire retardant material in their interiors by the end of 1987 as an additional safety precaution. The changes had not yet been carried out on the Corfu-bound British Airtours plane, authorities said.

The disaster was the first in the 16-year history of British Airtours, formed in 1969 by British Airways to capture the growing market in charter air tours.

Passengers aboard the plane had booked low-cost holidays through one of four travel agencies, three of them owned by British Airways. Most of those aboard were from the north of England or northern Wales.

The disaster was the third major accident involving a Boeing 737 since it entered commercial service in 1968, according to officials here. About 1,000 of the planes, used mainly on heavily traveled, short-haul routes, are now in service.

A 737 crash in Taiwan in 1981 killed 110 people, and 78 died when an Air Florida 737 crashed after taking off in freezing weather from Washington National Airport in January, 1982.

The British Airtours plane was a newer version of the 737, known as the 737-236. It entered service for the airline in April, 1981.

Like all 45 of the 737s operated by British Airways and its charter subsidiary, the plane was equipped with Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15 engines.

The flight from Manchester to Corfu is one of the longest on which the airline uses 737s. In addition to its maximum passenger load, the plane was heavily laden with fuel.

AIRLINE DISASTERS AT A GLANCE This Year’s Worst Crashes the following five major airline disasters in 1985 have claimed more than 1,100 lives. Aug 12: 520 killed when a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashed into a mountain on a domestic flight, the worst single plane accident ever. June 23: 329 killed when an Air-India 747 apparently exploded in flight off the coast of Ireland. Sabotage was suspected as the cause. Feb 19: 148 killed when an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed into a mountain in Spain. Aug. 2: 134 killed when a Delta Air Lines wide-bodied Lockheed L-1011 crashed in a thunderstorm while attempting to land at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The death toll included 133 people aboard the plane and one man on the ground. Aug. 22: At least 54 people killed when flames engulf a British Airtours Boeing 737 during takeoff from Manchester airport in England.

RECENT DATA 1974 1984 1985 (worst (to date) prev. year) Accidents * 15 15 Fatalities 1,229 224 over 1,400 Passengers * 830 million 900 million (expected)

Average accidents annually, past 10 years...........................22 Liklihood of a fatal air crash..................one in 500,000 flights * not available Source: International Civil Aviation Organization