The pilot who was sucked out of the plane after his window fell and survived because his feet were grabbed

On June 10, 1990, British Airways flight BA5390 took off from the British city of Birmingham bound for Malaga, Spain.

Prepared to fly for three hours, the captain Tim Lancaster and his co-pilot Alaister Atchinson were talking quietly in the cockpit as the plane reached cruising speed.

LOOK: A powerful El Niño phenomenon is forming: The “inexplicable” warming of the oceans that alarms scientists

Everything was going well. The crew began to prepare the food service, while the passengers settled into their seats on the flight that would take them to their vacations under the Mediterranean sun.

When barely 13 minutes had passed since takeoff, a loud bang was heard in the cabin. At that moment one of the flight attendants, Nigel Ogden, who had just offered the pilots a cup of tea, thought it was a bomb.

“The explosive decompression caused the entire cabin to mist up like fog for a second, then the plane began to plummet,” Ogden told The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

It was then that he realized what was really going on: Captain Tim Lancaster had been sucked through a gaping hole where there used to be a window.

“All I could see were his legs. I jumped over the control column and grabbed him around the waist to prevent him from leaving completely (…) Everything was being sucked out of the plane. Even an oxygen bottle that had been bolted down, it flew off and nearly took my head off.”

Two other crew members, Simon Rogers and John Heward, entered the cabin. Ogden was losing the strength of him as the pilot’s body slowly slid outward.

“My arms were getting weak 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 window and blood was coming out of his nose and the side of his head, his arms were flailing,” Ogden said.

“The scariest thing was that his eyes were wide. I’ll never forget that.”

The pilot’s body slammed against the plane.

In the Canadian documentary series “Mayday,” the pilot recounts what he remembers about the moment the window fell off the plane.

“I remember seeing the windshield sticking out of the aircraft and then it disappeared like a bullet into the distance.”

“I was aware of going up. It all became surreal. I remember being out of the plane, but it didn’t bother me that much. What I remember most is that I couldn’t breathe because the draft did not let me. I turned around and was able to breathe.”

“I remember seeing the tail of the plane, the engine, and then I don’t remember anything else. My memory stopped at that moment,” Lancaster says.

Rogers, another of the flight attendants, strapped himself into a seat, hooked the captain’s feet and held him by the ankles. They thought he was dead.

Actors reenacted the events in an episode of the Canadian documentary series ”Mayday,” also called in other countries ”Air Emergency,” ”Air Disasters” and ”Air Crash Investigation.” (Capture from screen).

With 400-mile-per-hour winds whipping Lancaster’s body against the side of the plane, crew members thought he was dead and feared that if they let go, his body could crash into one of the plane’s engines.

In the midst of the panic in the cockpit, Atchinson, the co-pilot managed to hold on to his seat and resumed control of the plane.

He was making desperate efforts to manage the chaos, while the rest of the crew tried to calm the 81 passengers on board.

“I could see a body hanging from the window”a passenger told the British agency Press Association.

“A flight attendant who was standing near us in the back of the plane started crying. I thought we were going to crash and I started praying,” said another passenger.

Over the loudspeaker, the co-pilot announced that the plane’s windshield had blown out and that they would attempt an emergency landing.

After all the difficulties he had in contacting the control tower, and against all odds, Atchinson made a safe landing at Southampton Airport.

Flight BA5390 touched down at 7:55 a.m. with passengers and crew in shock but relatively uninjured.

When the plane came to a stop, emergency services rushed into the aircraft cabin and found something no one expected: Tim Lancaster was still alive.

Unconscious and bruised, the pilot was breathing.

Paramedics wondered how a man who was exposed for 20 minutes to hurricane-force winds and sub-zero temperatures, he managed to survive.

He was treated for multiple fractures, frostbite, and severe concussion. Just five months later, Lancaster flew again.

What caused the windshield to fall in mid-flight?

In its final report, the Department of Transportation’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that faulty windshield maintenance, performed 27 hours before the plane’s takeoff, caused it to crash mid-flight.

The maintenance manager in charge of the operation used a set of screws that were too small to hold the windshield in positionsays document 1/92 (EW/C 1165) about the accident of the BAC One-Eleven aircraft, of the series 528FL, which occurred at 7:33 (UTC), published in February 1992, to which the BBC had access. World.

The investigation determined that the cause of the incident was faulty maintenance of the windshield. (Screenshot).

The text highlights three points:

In addition, the document recommends, among other things, that the Civil Aviation Authority examine the “self-certification” of tasks related to aircraft safety and to consider the need for periodic training of engineers.

British Airways, for its part, should review your “Quality Assurance” system and conduct an in-depth audit of labor practicespoint to the text.

The pilot, Tim Lancaster, has recovered at Southampton hospital. In the photo he appears with Simon Rogers (left) and Nigel Ogden (right).

Tim Lancaster with Simon Rogers (left) and Nigel Ogden (right). / GETTY IMAGES.

In relation to working conditions, the document says that the workload at the airport from where the aircraft took off “was high” and that compliance with schedules was a “quality indicator.”

About the captain who was about to die, just five months later, Tim Lancaster flew again.

Source: Elcomercio