50 years ago - ManU tragedy

[FrankM]

50 years ago the soccer team of Manchester United (the so called "Busby Babes") made a fuel stop in Munich on their way home from Belgrade. During the takeoff roll the airplane was slowed down by the slush on the runway, they never became airborne, overshot and crashed killing most of the players and coaches.

My dad was a student in Munich then and he lived in the wider area. He remembers that he heard tons of emergency vehicles rushing by for hours, thinking "hey, that must have been quite an accident", but never thought it could have been at the airport. Only the next day he read it in the newspaper and the soccer fan he was (and still is) he was deeply shocked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster

[flyboy2548m]

It didn't help that they were riding this monument to British engineering.

[David Hilditch]

It didn't help that they were riding this monument to British engineering.

While I might agree with you about the Ambassador, I don't think the aircraft type had much to do with this accident.

[flyboy2548m]

While I might agree with you about the Ambassador, I don't think the aircraft type had much to do with this accident.

It probably didn't help, David. I mean, nothing that ugly should have ever been allowed to fly and then you add a slushy runway....

[David Hilditch]

While I might agree with you about the Ambassador, I don't think the aircraft type had much to do with this accident.

It probably didn't help, David. I mean, nothing that ugly should have ever been allowed to fly and then you add a slushy runway....

OK. I never flew on one, but I was very familiar with them as a kid, including the Dan-Air ones. On start-up, the engines produced more smoke than I have ever seen from any other airplane to this day.

[flyboy2548m]

Looks like the result of a threesome involving a Britannia, a Connie and a C-119.

[David Hilditch]

There's still one preserved in good condition at Duxford.

[willezurmacht]

Was it built from cheap composites?

[Pipe]

Wasn´t this thing called Airspeed Ambassador?

Oh the ironing ...

[jcamp2112]

Hmm, a discussion about British Aerospace. Where's shadey when you need him?

[David Hilditch]

Hmm, a discussion about British Aerospace. Where's shadey when you need him?

It's nothing to do with British Aerospace, which was formed many years after the Ambassador was designed and built. The Ambassador may or may not have been a poor aircraft - none of us really knows for sure as it predates all of us, though I have read that many pilots liked it and it had good flying characteristics. It has to be seen in an historical context when the UK was very inventive and creative with a large number of airliner designs, as a result of WW2 momentum and a very fragmented aircraft design industry in the post-war period. Some designs were successful, some laid the ground technically for future designs, but many were failures. Those that were failures were often under-powered, poorly engineered or didn't sell due to a small domestic market and excessive governmental interference in those days.