Kegworth Air Disaster

The Kegworth air disaster occurred when British Midland Airways Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the motorway embankment between the M1 motorway and A453 road near Kegworth, Leicestershire, England, while attempting to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport on 8 January 1989. The aircraft was on a scheduled flight from London Heathrow Airport to Belfast International Airport. When a fan blade broke in the left engine, smoke was drawn into the cabin through the air conditioning system. The pilots believed this indicated a fault in the right engine, since earlier models of the 737 ventilated the cabin from the right, and they were unaware that the 737-400 used a different system. The pilots retarded the right thrust lever and the symptoms of smoke and vibration cleared, leading them to believe the problem had been identified, and then the right engine was shut down. On the final stage of the approach, thrust was increased on the left engine. The tip of the fan blade that had lodged in the cowling from the earlier event became dislodged and was drawn into the core of the engine, damaging it and causing a fire. The fan blade had initially suffered a fracture caused by aerodynamic flutter. This knowledge made clear that static ground testing to discover the presence of flutter was unreliable and the fan blade had to be subjected to the full flight envelope to be certain of the test results. The accident was the first hull loss of a Boeing 737 Classic aircraft, and the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 737 Classic aircraft. Of the 126 people aboard, 47 died and 74 sustained serious injuries.