There
were 44 passengers on board along with 6 crew members. Twenty-three people died in the
crash, including eight players from the Manchester United football team, which
had just qualified for the semifinals of the European Cup.
The Manchester United side was on
their way back to Old Trafford from Belgrade, Yugoslovia currently a part of
Serbia after playing the knock out match of European Cup tie against Red Star
Belgrade.
The aircraft was carrying the
entire Manchester United side along with a few supporters & journalists
were an Airspeed AS-57 Ambassador aircraft which landed in Munich for refueling
purpose.
After refueling the first two attempts
of take off became in-vain due to the heavy snowfall in the runway of Munich
airport, then the Manchester United authority decided to spend that night in
Munich but two pilots Captain James Thain and Kenneth Rayment rejected
their proposal & went to try for the third attempt of take off at 15-05pm
Munich time.
During the third attempt on that ice
covered slushy runway it slipped & rammed into the fence & after heavy
collision went inside of a house nearby airport.
Seven United players were died in that accident named Roger Byrne (28),
Eddie Colman (21), Mark Jones (24), David Pegg (22), Tommy Taylor (26), Geoff
Bent (25), Liam Whelan (22) and Duncan Edwards (21), along with club secretary
Walter Crickmer, trainer Tom Curry and coach Bert Whalley.Eight journalists were also died in that accident named Alf Clarke, Tom Jackson, Don Davies, George Fellows, Archie Ledbrook, Eric Thompson, Henry Rose, and Frank Swift who was a former Manchester City player. Plane captain Ken Rayment perished, as did Sir Matt's friend Willie Satinoff. Travel agent Bela Miklos and crew member Tom Cable also died.
During that accident Manchester United was going through a dream run of remaining unbeaten in their last 11 matches under the supervision of Sir Matt Busby, they were just 6 points behind the league leader with still 14 matches on their hand on their way to third successive EPL crown, they reached in the fifth round of the FA cup also.
United bounced back strongly from overcoming that critical situation by defeating Sheffield Wednesday by 3-0 margin in the very next match just after that disaster with an inexperienced side made up of reserve & youth players. With this broken side they reached in the 1958 FA cup final even which they lost to Bolton Wanderers by 0-2 margin.
This disaster is an indelible part of United's history, as is Sir Matt Busby overcoming this fatal tragedy to build up another great team which won the European Cup just after 10 years of that incident.
They have been establishing themselves as the most dominant force in
world football yet. In 1999 they won the triple crown in the shades of the EPL
title, the UEFA Champions League crown & the FA cup crown under the
supervision of the legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson which is counted as the
most successful year in United’s history.In this current era for their late scoring abilities United is known as the red devils & they become a live mania, a myth sometimes beyond a religion the legacy is heavily spread throughout the all continents of this globe from Europe to America, Africa to Asia, undoubtedly they have the most number of supporters in world football right now.
After that mishap everybody blamed the pilot Captains James Thain for showing arrogance regarding his third attempt of take off but 10 years later on 1968 it has been proved by the investigation authority that the accident was taken place only due to heavy slush on the runway, the pilot was not responsible for that.
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