The fateful flight
All the troubles began back on the ground, when a passenger airliner belonging to a British airline was being prepared for the flight. In dim light, the maintenance shift manager was replacing the front windscreen. He did everything in a rush, relying on «blind luck», – and almost all the fastening bolts turned out to be of smaller dimensions.
On June 10, 1990, aircraft commander Tim Lancaster, in an excellent mood, takes his place at the controls. Outside the airliner the weather is splendid, the most flyable there is, and in the cabin the passengers chat cheerfully. This time there were 81 of them.
The airliner flies from Birmingham to Malaga. At an altitude of over 5 thousand meters, the usual work begins. Tim Lancaster engages the autopilot, and the flight attendants are already preparing to serve the passengers food and drinks.
The incident
And after 13 minutes of normal flight, everyone, including the poor passengers, would experience a true nightmare. First there was a deafening bang, then the cockpit windscreen flies out like a cork. In a matter of moments decompression occurs – and the plane begins to lose altitude. In the passenger cabin panic breaks out.
A monstrous force throws Lancaster out of the cockpit – and he nearly tumbles out of the airliner, miraculously catching his leg on the control column. On top of that, at the last moment flight attendant Nigel Ogden grabbed him by the belt.
And Lancaster, like an autumn leaf, stuck to the fuselage on the outer side of the flying plane – and was already unconscious. The fierce wind battered the captain's face against the surviving second window, and blood from his split-open head streamed over the glass. Tim was tossed about like a rag in the airflows. And it was inconceivable, as it would later turn out, that he was still alive! According to Ogden, this terrible sight filled him with horror. The commander's wide-open eyes were especially frightening.
The struggle for life
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Nigel held Lancaster firmly by the ankles, but his strength was already running out. An oxygen cylinder, torn loose by a gust of wind, nearly took his head off. And yet, through combined efforts, with the help of flight attendants who arrived in time, they managed to keep the situation under control.
None of the crew members believed any longer that Tim was alive. His gray, motionless and frostbitten face clearly testified to the commander's death. Paradoxically, his body had to be held with the last of their strength. Lancaster was blocking the opening in the cockpit of the plane. And this helped the airliner to regain altitude and request help from the ground. Besides, Lancaster's body, if let loose, could end up in the plane's engine. And then no one would have survived.
The co-pilot managed to make an emergency landing at Southampton airport. The 22 minutes of terror in the sky that the crew members and passengers spent will be remembered by each of them for the rest of their lives. Surprisingly, Tim Lancaster got off with fractures of his arm and finger and frostbite.
The aftermath
According to the captain, only one episode remained in his memory – how, already outside, he turned to face the side of the plane. To make it easier to breathe, – and then he lost consciousness. Six months later he would return to his work. In his hometown he was considered a living legend. To stay alive after a 22-minute flight on the fuselage of a plane at a speed of 600 km/h and in cold of down to -17 – that is simply fantastic!
Alas, the only one who would not be lucky in this story was the brave flight attendant Ogden. Post-traumatic stress would force him to leave the job he loved. The crew members would be awarded a British decoration for saving the lives of the passengers and the aircraft commander. Of the fate of the bungling repairman – the culprit of the ordeal in the sky – nothing is known.
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