Our pilot was sucked OUT of cockpit at 17,000ft as brave steward clung on to his legs – I’ll never forget chilling noise
IT was a crisis that no pilot could ever prepare for.
At 17,000ft in the sky, the passenger jet’s windscreen blew out – taking the captain with it.
He would have been sucked out of the plane to a certain death had a quick-thinking air steward not grabbed his legs, while the first officer had to find a way to get the stricken aircraft safely on the ground as winds of 250 knots blew into his face.
And all the while the horrified crew could see their Captain Tim Lancaster’s face and body smashing against the outside of the plane, leading them to believe there was no way he could survive.
It sounds like a scene from a disaster movie. But this is the real-life terror that faced passengers and crew on BA flight 5390 from Birmingham to Malaga, which they have relived for Channel 5 show Terror At 30,000ft.
Aviation expert John Walton tells the documentary: “The wind is rushing in at 250 miles an hour.
“The Captain is stuck half in, half out of the aircraft, from the waist up, he’s bashing against the side window. All that’s keeping him in that aircraft are the arms of that third steward.
“Adding to the chaos, the flight deck door has blown inwards and smashed against the controls. The autopilot is disabled.
“The throttles are pushed forward. The yoke controlling the direction of the aircraft is pushing it down. This is unprecedented.”
Airline captain Emma Henderson MBE adds: “There is no procedure for ‘The pilot is hanging out of the window’. You’ve got so many problems now, because which do you deal with first?
“Do you deal with the fact that your other colleague is missing and therefore unable to operate the aircraft, or is the bigger problem the fact that now you’re depressurised and everybody in the aircraft is now above 10,000 feet, and therefore unable to breathe like they would have done on the ground.
“What do you do? Which problem do you pick up first?”
It was June 10 1990. England were flying high in Italia 90, and passengers heading to the continent were in good spirits.
The passengers en route to Malaga were flying on board one of BA’s small fleet of BAC One-Eleven aircraft – a 1960s plane considered a workhorse of aviation.
Because of its age, it didn’t have some of the few safety features that we might think of as normal today, including oxygen masks.
But the relatively small craft had a reputation for being reliable and easy to maintain.
Captain Tim Lancaster was to be joined on the flight by First Officer Alistair Aitchison, who was going to be doing the flying while the captain would monitor and do the radio calls.
As passengers started to board the plane, the pilots noted in the paperwork that the plane’s windscreen had been replaced.
According to the maintenance log, a previous crew had seen bubbles and darkening on the captain’s side window. But with a new windscreen in place, they saw no cause for alarm.
Passenger Nichola Rippin was flying for the first time with her partner Chris and baby James, and was nervous but excited.
She recalls: “I was 18. I had a little boy who was 18 months old, and a partner. I was about four or five months pregnant at the time.
With that, the hairs on the back of my neck went up, and my brain said, ‘No. This only happens in films. It doesn’t happen in real life.’
Chris Rundle, air traffic controller
“I had never flown before and everyone was telling me how wonderful it was going to be, and that I’d really enjoy it and what not. And yes, I was super, super looking forward to it.”
The flight took off at 8.20am and as it rose through the skies the cabin crew prepared to serve breakfast.
On the flight deck as the plane reached an altitude of 10,000ft the pilots removed their harness shoulder straps to make it more comfortable and easier to reach the controls and engaged autopilot.
Almighty bang
But at 17,300ft there was an almighty bang – and chaos gripped the cockpit.
Passenger Nichola, holding her baby James on her knee, says: “It was just literally this bang, and this like whoosh.
“I was like ‘Oh my god, what’s happened?’ Coloured drained from Chris’ face. He just put his head down and just like literally prayed that we were going to get off that flight.”
A freezing wind ripped through the cabin, along with loose items like newspapers and books. But in the cockpit, things were much, much worse.
The main left windscreen on the pilot’s side had blown out, and the flight deck door had been ripped off its hinges by the powerful wind and became trapped behind the throttle lever.
The plane started to drop very, very quickly, causing panic amongst the passengers.
Stephanie Jenkins who was flying to visit her mum in Spain says: “We started descending very quickly.
“I mean, just flying out of the sky, you know. And I thought ‘Oh my god’. Everyone was holding on to each other… but I had nobody to hold on to.”
“You could hear some people crying and whimpering,” says Nichola. “I was, you know, snuggling with Jimbo.”
Hanging on for dear life
But in the cockpit when First Officer Aitchison looked to his captain for guidance, he was nowhere to be seen.
His entire torso had been sucked out of the plane window. Luckily the quick-thinking steward had seen what was happening and grabbed the pilot’s legs to stop him from being pulled out entirely to certain death.
While third steward Nigel Ogden held on to the Captain’s legs, Chief Steward John Heward rushed into the cockpit and managed to break the door into pieces by stamping on it. Allowing the co-pilot to take control of the aircraft.
Three miles above ground First Officer Aitchison was faced with a deadly time pressure. At that altitude the air is thin and he needed to get the plane on the ground before he ran out of oxygen.
There is no procedure for ‘The pilot is hanging out of the window’
Airline captain Emma Henderson MBE
In the cabin it was pandemonium. The air was suddenly Everest base camp thin – 50 per cent less than sea level – and passengers were starting to feel sick and dizzy.
The First Officer put the aircraft into a swift dive to get down to some breathable air. In two minutes, he took 6,000 feet off the altitude. He put in a mayday call to get other aircraft out of his way as soon as possible.
Aviation expert John Walton says: “It’s a scene from a horror movie. The Captain’s head and face hit the side of the aircraft, and inside the cockpit they can see all of this through the windows.
“He’s also incredibly heavy from the wind that’s trying to pull him out of this flight deck. Nigel Ogden, his steward, is having to hold on to what feels like 500 pound, 200 kilo weight. That’s enormous.”
None of the crew knew whether the captain was alive or dead. But either way, they had to hold on because letting go could send him into one of the plane’s engines which would cause a catastrophic engine failure.
London Air Traffic Control identified Southampton as the plane’s closest airport to attempt an emergency landing.
Aitchison accepted Southampton, but it’s an airport he had never landed at before. He wasn’t familiar with the approach, and there were none of the navigational aids at a big airport like Gatwick would have.
And the devastation in the cockpit meant all the navigational charts he would usually use had been lost, so he called air traffic control and said they would have to guide him down to land.
Daunting task
That daunting task came to air traffic controller Chris Rundle. “We had a direct line to the London Air Traffic Control Centre,” he recalls.
“It was the Sector Chief, who said ‘We’ve got an aircraft emergency coming into you. It’s a BAC One-Eleven, and its had a decompression failure’.”
Chris radioed the first officer to ask if that was the only problem, and received the chilling reply: “Er, negative sir, the captain is half sucked out of the aeroplane. I believe he is dead.”
Chris says: “With that, the hairs on the back of my neck went up, and my brain said, ‘No. This only happens in films. It doesn’t happen in real life.’
“I then went on to process the information, phoned the tower on the direct line and said ‘We have a full emergency, get the fire crews on standby’.”
Nothing in his thousands of hours of flying will have prepared him for this.This is completely unprecedented. It’s hard to think of a more complicated and difficult situation for landing.
John Walter, aviation expert
The pilot asked for Chris to guide him down with gentle turns which had the best chance of keeping Captain Tim even with the cockpit on the outside of the aircraft, meaning less chance of losing him.
“The quality of the communications from him were quite bad because there was about 180 knot wind speed going through the cockpit,” says Chris.
“Think about driving a car, you wind the window down, you get that booming noise of the air going past the window, the air coming into the car. You can’t hear the radio that’s going off.”
The pilot estimated he needed a runway of 2,500m to land the plane – still full of fuel – safely. But Chris had to inform him that Southampton’s runway was only 1,800m.
With no other option the first officer had to put his faith in Chris to get him and his passengers on the ground.
Terrifying landing
John Walton says: “Alistair Aitchison has trained for all sorts of landings, but nothing in his thousands of hours of flying will have prepared him for this.
“This is completely unprecedented. It’s hard to think of a more complicated and difficult situation for landing.
“A short runway, a heavy plane, full of terrified passengers, crew holding on to the Captain who is sticking out of the windscreen. This is so far beyond anything that you can train for, that… it’s madness.”
But between them, Chris and the pilot got the plane on the ground safely. It was only then that Chris saw the full horror of what had happened.
He says: “I then got up and looked out the window to see what was actually happening. As he came over the motorway at the end of the runway, you could see him, and you could see Tim hanging out the window. The fire crews went out, the ambulance went out, they were all being controlled from the tower.”
One of his first flights back, one of the cabin staff went into the cockpit and saw him there ready to fly, and said ‘Have you got your straps on then, Tim?’. ‘No’, he said, ‘I’ve got lead in my boots’
Chris Rundle, air traffic controller
And as the blue lights swarmed past, the passengers had to embark past the captain’s body still hanging from the aircraft.
Stephanie Jenkins recalls: “When we got down the steps, there was the Captain.
“He looked like the mermaid on the stern of a ship, because he was like that, out of the windscreen. He looked asleep, really. He wasn’t moving.”
But by some miracle he was still alive – after 20 minutes of being slammed against the plane at 250 miles an hour.
He was taken to the hospital suffering from fractures, frostbite and bruising. Nigel Ogden, the steward who held onto him suffered a dislocated shoulder and frostbite.
Critical lessons
The very same day, the authorities launched their investigation to find out what went wrong.
The engineer who replaced the windscreen had used the wrong size bolts to keep it in place. The difference in these two sorts of bolts is less than a millimetre, and crucially, this engineer was not wearing his glasses.
John Walton says: “Aviation learned some critical lessons here. One was about the importance of oxygen masks. Another, the importance of double-checking.
“It might sound bizarre. There was also a recommendation that if someone needs glasses, they must wear them at all times while performing maintenance work.
“And crucially, the way that Chris Rundle guided this aircraft down was a textbook exercise in how Air Traffic controllers respond to an emergency, and lessons were learned and implemented in Air Traffic controller training.”
Amazingly, both pilots returned to serve after the near-death experience.
Chris Rundle says: “I’d say he was back flying within a couple of months, and continued his flying career with British Airways, as did Alistair. “
Despite undergoing such an unimaginably horrific ordeal, Captain Tim made light of what he experienced.
He says: “One of his first flights back, one of the cabin staff went into the cockpit and saw him there ready to fly, and said ‘Have you got your straps on then, Tim?’. ‘No’, he said, ‘I’ve got lead in my boots’.”
Terror At 30,000ft continues 9pm tonight on Channel 5. Stream now on My5.
Five tips for keeping safe during turbulence
ONE minute you may be sleeping, watching a film or chatting to your fellow passenger - but the next all hell could break loose.
While turbulence injuries are low – with the Federal Aviation Administration reporting 146 passengers and crew seriously hurt between 2009 and 2021 – they can still happen.
However, there are several easy things you can do to reduce your risk of coming into harm’s way – former pilots and experts reveal some of their top tips.
BUCKLE UP – Keeping your seatbelt on at all times drastically reduces your chance of injury and it’s worth fastening it too even when the sign is off. Retired pilot Doug Moss told The Washington Post to always pay attention when the seatbelt sign is on because “more likely than not, that means that the pilot has reason to be expecting turbulence”.
SEAT SELECTION – Those sitting at the back of the plane will bear the brunt of turbulence due to the way the plane is designed. The wings remain stable, whereas the tail is designed to move meaning a greater chance of a bumpy ride. Additionally, choosing a window seat puts you less at risk of being hit by items falling from an overhead locker.
ROUTE RESEARCH – By checking flight path maps including Turbli, Fly With Courage and Turbulence Forecast, you can see turbulence on your upcoming routes and prepare in advance. However, experts caveat the tip by warning flight paths often change at the last minute and airlines have more advanced detection methods than the aforementioned sites.
POSSESSIONS PLAN – Former pilot Kathleen Bangs says it’s important to consider what items you have around you. If turbulence is warned, do not place electricals in a spare seat beside you as it may fly up and hit someone. Additionally, they warn about having hot drinks and where they are placed during bumpy moments on the flight.
TRUST YOUR PILOT – The experts urge passengers to listen to cabin crew and their flight staff as they know what’s best for people’s safety. Particularly the pilot, who has access to weather maps, their on board weather radar and reports from air control staff.