The decisions that haunt Midlands flight 092
A plane crash that made British history and how it forever changed aviation standards
Rules and regulations are written in blood, as they say.
We spent an entire week of flight attendant training studying plane crashes, and surprisingly, this didn't scare anyone off. We did watch with eyes squinted, looking around the room with nervous smiles. What had we signed up for?
One of the more memorable stories goes like this.
On a winter's day in 1989, the British Midland flight 092 took off for Belfast from London's Heathrow airport.
Soon after take off, the passengers in the back of the 737 saw smoke and fire coming from the left engine and alerted the flight attendants. Then the breakdown in communication happened.
The video we watched during training showed us the scenario in a dramatic reenactment. At this point, it's unclear from my research whether or not the flight attendants and pilots had communicated with each other.
You can hear the exchange in the flight deck (then called the cockpit) between the captain and the first officer from the recording. Because of their training on older aircraft, the signals of smoke in the cabin and vibrations in the plane, they assumed the fire was coming from the right engine.
In the audio you can hear the first officer saying something like, yes it's the left, I mean er right engine.
For technical reasons that would only make sense to pilots or engineers, the rumbling and shaking stopped once they shut down the right engine, even though the left engine was the one with a propeller blade lodged in it. So the flight deck continued with the procedures for shutting down the right engine.
Air traffic control directed the pilots to divert the plane to East Midlands airport. Around this time, the flight leader comes into the flight deck and tells the pilots that the passengers were getting anxious. So the captain makes an announcement informing the cabin that they shut down the right engine due to fire and that they'd be landing in 10 minutes.
The passengers were confused by this information, as it belied their first-hand experience. What about the sparks they saw shooting from the other side of the plane? The crew were busy preparing the cabin for an emergency landing so either did not hear or did not question the captain's announcement.
Upon final approach to the airport, the left engine burst into flames, the tail hit the ground and the plane crashed into the M1 motorway, breaking into three big pieces.
Luckily, no cars were crossing the road at that point. But 47 passengers out of 118 died on impact and from injuries, while all 8 crew members survived.
In later interviews, the first officer couldn't say why he confirmed to the captain it was the right engine that was failing. Out of this disaster came changes in protocols and checklists in European aviation, and a better division of roles between the caption and first officer.
The idea and practice of crew resource management also sprouted from the accident, and it's something that responsible flight attendants and pilots practice every flight. It's our duty to tell the flight deck if there's an unruly passenger onboard, and to report whenever passengers notice something amiss.
What's interesting about the Midland's crash is that neither the passengers nor the cabin crew questioned the flight deck's decision making, and the flight deck never confirmed what was happing with the cabin crew.
Blame it on the downfalls of British decorum, imposter syndrome on the crew's part, or the big egos of pilots. Either way, much better communication and better training would've meant a different outcome for that flight.
For us in the future, it means higher standards of safety and communication at the cost of many lives.
And that's my Halloween special.
Stay fly,
Megan
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