The aircraft was packed and bound for Spain. Then the windscreen blew and the captain was sucked out. Nigel Ogden, who saved him by hanging on to his legs, tells his story for the first time to Julia Llewellyn Smith.
It was like something from a disaster movie and I still find it hard to believe I was at the centre of it all. An aircraft full of passengers, out of control at 17,000 feet with the captain stuck outside.
I think about what happened every day. It was Sunday, June 10, 1990. It was a beautiful morning and I was up early because I was working on the British Airways 7.30am flight from Birmingham to Malaga. I was 36, had been an air steward with BA for 12 years, and loved my job with a passion.
I expected that day to be especially enjoyable. It was a holiday flight, so the 81 passengers would be relaxed, and the crew - Captain Tim Lancaster, stewards Simon Rogers and John Heward, and stewardess Sue Prince - had worked together, on and off, for years. The only member of the crew new to us was the co-pilot, Alistair Atcheson. The aircraft was a 43-tonne BAC 1-11, which was known as the jeep of the skies, because it was a workhorse - reliable and easy to maintain.
The flight was delayed for an hour, so I wandered up and down the plane, making sure everyone knew what was going on. Tim made an announcement - "You'll be pleased to know the weather is sunny and dry in Malaga and we should be on our way shortly" - then the dispatcher told us we could leave. We did the safety briefing and Simon and I strapped ourselves into our jump seats, chatting about which team had lost at rugby the previous day. We heard the roaring of the engines and then we were up in the air.
It was 13 minutes after take-off and we had just reached 17,300 feet, 5000 feet beneath our assigned altitude. I went onto the flight deck and asked if they'd like tea. I was just stepping out, with my hand on the door handle, when there was an enormous explosion and the door was blown out of my hands. I thought, "My God. It's a bomb." Explosive decompression made the whole cabin mist up like fog for a second - then the plane started to plummet.
I whipped round, peering through the mist, and saw the front windscreen had disappeared and Tim, the pilot, was going out through it. He had been sucked out of his seatbelt and all I could see were his legs. I jumped over the control column and grabbed him round his waist to avoid him going out completely. His shirt had been pulled off his back and his body was bent upwards, doubled over round the top of the aircraft. His legs were jammed forward, disconnecting the autopilot, and the flight door was resting on the controls, sending the plane hurtling down at nearly 643km/h through some of the most congested skies in the world.
Everything was being sucked out of the aircraft: even an oxygen bottle that had been bolted down went flying and nearly knocked my head off. I was holding on for grim death but I could feel myself being sucked out too. John rushed in behind me and saw me disappearing, so he grabbed my trouser belt to stop me slipping further, then wrapped the captain's shoulder strap around me. Luckily, Alistair, the co-pilot, was still wearing his safety harness from take-off, otherwise he would have gone, too.
The aircraft was losing height so quickly that the pressure soon equalised and the wind started rushing in - at 627km/h and -17C. Paper was blowing round all over the place and it was impossible for Alistair to hear air-traffic control. We were spiralling down at 80 feet per second with no autopilot and no radio.
I was still holding on to Tim but the pressure made him weigh the equivalent of 226 kilograms. It was a good thing I'd had so much training at rugby tackles, but my arms were getting colder and colder and I could feel them being pulled out of their sockets.
Simon came rushing through and, with John, managed to unwrap Tim's legs and the remains of the doors from the controls, and Alistair got the autopilot back on. But still he continued to increase speed, to lessen the risk of a mid-air collision and to get us down to an altitude where there was more oxygen. He dived to 11,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, then finally got the speed down to 300km/h.
I was still holding Tim, but my arms were getting weaker, and then he slipped. I thought I was going to lose him, but he ended up bent in a U-shape around the windows. His face was banging against the windscreen with blood coming out of his nose and the side of his head, his arms were flailing and seemed about 1.8 metre long. Most terrifyingly, although his face was hitting the side screen, his eyes were wide open. I'll never forget that sight as long as I live.
I couldn't hold on any more, so Simon strapped himself into the third pilot's seat and hooked Tim's feet over the back of the captain's seat and held on to his ankles. One of the others said: "We're going to have to let him go." I said: "I'll never do that." I knew I wouldn't be able to face his family, handing them a matchbox and saying: "This is what is left of your husband." If we'd let go of his body, it might have got jammed in a wing or the engines.
I left Simon hanging on to Tim and staggered back into the main cabin. For a moment, I just sat totally exhausted in a jump seat, my head in my hands, then Sue came up to me, very shaken. In front of all the passengers, I put my arms around her and whispered in her ear: "I think the Captain's dead." But then I said: "Come on, love, we've got a job to do."
By now, Alistair was talking to air-traffic control, who were talking him through landing at Southampton airport. All pilot training is done on the basis of two pilots, one to fly and one doing the emergency drill, but Alistair was alone, with a crew he didn't know and relying entirely on memory, because all the manuals and charts had blown away. He asked for a runway of 2500 metres because he was worried that the plane was so heavy with fuel, a tyre would burst or it would go off the runway, but they said all they could offer was 1800m.
Over the intercom he told the passengers we'd lost the windscreen. Some of them could see Tim out of the window but the cabin was silent as the grave. We walked up and down, preparing the passengers for an emergency landing. People gasped as they saw the blood on my face. The place was very shuddery, very rocky. I remember one man at the very back, with a little baby on his knee, saying to me: "We're going to die," and I said: "No, we are not," lying through my teeth.
All I could see out of the windows was a line of trees, and I thought we'd either smash into those or into the housing estate beyond. I had a partner, Jean, and a stepson, Jamie, but I was thinking most about my mum. She'd lost my brother in a car crash the year before, and I couldn't bear to think how she'd take the news. But, in spite of everything, Alistair did the most amazing landing, what we call a greaser - completely smooth and stopping the aircraft only three-quarters of the way down the runway.
There wasn't even any need to use the emergency chutes. We got all the passengers down the steps in an orderly fashion, although I did have to shout at a couple of people who were trying to get their handbags from the lockers. The whole time from the explosion to the landing had been 18 minutes, but it seemed like hours.
I got back on board to check everyone had left. The paramedics had Tim in the cockpit on a stretcher and I went in to see him. He was lying there, covered in blood, but to my amazement I heard him say: "I want to eat." I just exclaimed: "Typical bloody pilot." Luckily, he'd been in a coma throughout the ordeal, his body had just shut down. I went out onto the front steps, and shouted at the others "He's alive!" and then I cried my eyes out.
We learned that all but six of the passengers were still going to travel on to Malaga that afternoon. John and I went into the departure area to see them. I applauded them and they applauded us. I said: "I'm sorry, don't fly British Airways again."
I was left with a dislocated shoulder, a frostbitten face and some frostbite damage to my left eye that still persists. Amazingly, Tim only suffered from frostbite, fractures in his arm and wrist and a broken thumb. Within five months he was flying again and today he's a pilot for easyJet. Alistair and John are still with BA, but Sue and Simon no longer fly.
My mother and I went on a round-the-world trip and I was back at work by October, but it was never the same. I started getting spots all over my body. In February, I had to be hospitalised with psoriasis brought on by post-traumatic stress. It made it difficult for me to work with people as it was so unsightly, and then I started to have a problem with alcohol as well. I used to love going into work - now I hated it.
In 1992, a report was published about the accident. It turned out that a BA engineer, working under pressure, had fitted a new windscreen with bolts that were too small. I was absolutely livid, and withdrew into myself. It took us nine years of fighting to get some small compensation from the airline. Eventually, in 2001, I took early retirement on grounds of ill health. Now I'm a night watchman at a Salvation Army hospital.
This was the fourth time in my career that I had laid my life on the line. There had been an incident leaving Gerona in a thunderstorm, when we found ourselves flying at only 2000 feet above mountains. Another time, the engine blew out on take-off from Perth and we nearly hit a pylon; a third time a hold door fell out just as we were coming off the ground at Zurich. Some people tell me I must be jinxed to have had so many bad experiences. But I think it's amazing I've been through all this and am still alive. I'm not jinxed, I'm a survivor.
- Sunday Telegraph
