The clock shows a minute to four when the Elizabethan rolls onto the starting field at Munich-Riem Airport again. The plane is to take the Manchester United football team back to England, which last night made it through to the semi-finals of the European Cup with a 3-3 win in Belgrade. The machine has already had to abort two attempts to start because it could not accelerate to the required speed. But this time Captain James Thain is more optimistic: the heavy snowfall has eased and visibility has improved. There is a little slush on the runway.
4:02 p.m.: The tower gives permission for the machine to take off. The pilots accelerate, but suddenly the same problems arise as in the two previous attempts. The plane begins to lurch slightly, then for some unknown reason it loses speed. “Christ, we won’t make it!” Co-pilot Kenneth Rayment suddenly yells. Thain looks out of the window for the first time during the third take-off attempt and is shocked: the runway is almost over, the plane is too slow to take off – and too fast to brake.
He saw the house and the tree at the end of the runway racing towards him, he will say later in the investigation report of the Federal Aviation Office in Braunschweig: “I remember thinking that we couldn’t possibly get through between them. I ducked my head and Then came the collision.” The twin-engine plane crashes into the house 300 meters from the runway, is torn apart, the fuselage is thrown 150 meters further and sets a shed on fire.
23 dead, 21 injured. This is the balance sheet of the Riem plane crash, which marks the 65th anniversary of February 6th. However, the simple numbers can only show part of the tragedy that the crash meant for the survivors, the bereaved and English football. It resulted in years of legal disputes, caused disagreements between England and Germany, traumatized survivors such as coach Matt Busby, who was critically injured in the crash and felt responsible for the deaths of eight of his players. “He never forgot Munich. Somehow he felt responsible. As if it were his children who died there,” said footballer Bobby Charlton, who survived the accident and led the English national team to the world title eight years later.
Bobby Charlton, one of the surviving players, in a Munich hospital.
(Photo: Getty Images)
The crash also destroyed livelihoods among the survivors: Johnny Berry and Jackie Blanchflower were injured so badly that they never play football again. Flight captain James Thain also had to give up his job. After the accident, he was able to get out of the cockpit under his own power, unlike his co-pilot Rayment, who died in hospital more than a month later from severe injuries.
Was the layer of ice already on the wings before the accident?
But Thain’s personal tragedy began six hours after the crash, when the investigative commission of the Federal Aviation Authority in Braunschweig arrived at the scene of the accident. The experts wiped the snow off the wings and discovered a layer of ice five millimeters thick. Had the ice only formed in the hours after the crash? Or was that the cause of the accident? To date, this question has not been definitively answered. The investigation report from the aviation authority later said that “purely arithmetically” the ice could have formed during the stopover in Munich. Witnesses reported that there was snow on the wings before it rolled away. But was there a layer of ice underneath?
James Thain, who turned 37 the day after the accident, was targeted by investigators. Because the pilot had to make sure that everything was in order with the wings. The Aviation Authority was also investigating other factors. Was the starting runway insufficiently prepared in the snow? Did the wheels lock in the slush? Were there problems with the technology on the plane? In the end, however, the commission came to a clear conclusion: “The layer of ice significantly impaired the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft (…) and increased the required take-off speed. (…) This was the decisive cause of the accident.” In other words, James Thain was responsible for the disaster.
At least from the perspective of the Germans. Thain contradicted this representation. For him, there was more at stake than just his reputation: he was threatened with the revocation of his pilot’s license and with it his career. He wanted to force the investigation to be resumed, but a new investigation in 1964 confirmed the results of 1958. For his employer, British European Airways, the pilot was no longer tenable. Thain was fired and had to make ends meet as the operator of a turkey farm.
The aviation authority ignored new findings
But he continued to fight doggedly for his rehabilitation. With success. Eleven years after the accident, an English commission came to a completely different conclusion in 1969 with new witness statements: “The cause of the accident was mud on the runway. In our opinion, Captain Thain is not to blame.” Photos used as evidence of snow on the wings revealed that the snow was actually a reflection of light.
The accident finally turned into an Anglo-German conflict: the British Pilots’ Association accused Braunschweig of having suppressed testimonies. In fact, statements opposing the icing theory were not mentioned in the report. According to the pilots’ association, this was intended to distract from their own omissions. Because if a poorly prepared runway had been the cause of the accident, the airport would be responsible for the disaster. “Pure polemics,” said Friedrich Möhlmann, director of the Aviation Office, in a 1969 statement Mirror-Interview. He questioned the English test results: “How can you determine that after eleven years?”
Icy wings or poorly cleared runway? Rescue work in snowstorms.
(Photo: Getty Images)
Search for the cause of the crash: The remains of the crashed plane are inspected.
(Photo: AP)
In Old Trafford, Manchester United’s stadium, a clock with the inscription “Feb 6th 1958 Munich” still commemorates the terrible accident. The “Busby Babes”, as coach Matt Busby’s team was called with an average age of just 23, were considered a great promise, the hope of English football. Would you have fulfilled those dreams? It makes the myth of Manchester United that that question will never be answered.
After the accident, only seven of the 17 footballers who traveled with them continued to play football professionally. The accident changed the identity of the club. “Manchester United went from a football club to an institution,” Harry Gregg, the “Hero of Munich,” later observed. He rescued four people from the wreck before it exploded.
The plane crash has created a friendship between the cities and also between the football clubs Bayern Munich and ManU, which are rivals in international competitions. Since a memorial stone was erected on Manchesterplatz in honor of the victims in 2004, FC Bayern has taken care of the floral decorations. A showcase is also intended to keep the memories of the plane crash alive; it is to be officially unveiled this Monday, 65 years after the crash, in the presence of Mayor Dieter Reiter and representatives of Manchester United and FC Bayern Munich.
There is agreement on commemoration, but not on processing. To this day, Germany is sticking to the verdict of 1958 and thus to Thain’s guilt; in England, based on the findings of 1969, the pilot is considered innocent. A contradiction that the Director of the Aviation Office Möhlmann accepted with the words: “It is a question of a different assessment of known facts.”
For James Thain, it was more than that. He died of a heart attack in 1975. He was 54 years old.
This text was first published on February 5, 2018 and has now been updated.