The surprising story of Tim Lancaster, the pilot who was sucked out of the plane after his window fell and survived because they grabbed him by the feet

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

Ready to fly for three hours, Captain Tim Lancaster and his copilot Alaister Atchinson were talking softly in the cockpit as the plane reached cruising speed.

Everything went well. The crew began preparing dinner 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, there was a loud bang in the cabin. At the time, 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 fog up for a second, after which the plane began to descend,” Ogden told the newspaper. The Sydney Morning Herald.

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 her legs. I jumped over the control column and grabbed him around the waist to prevent him from taking off completely (…) Everything was sucked out of the plane. Even an oxygen cylinder that was bolted on flew around and almost took my head.”

Two other crew members, Simon Rogers and John Heward, entered the cabin. Ogden lost his power as the pilot’s body slowly slid out.

“My arms got weak and then she slipped. I thought I was going to lose it, but it ended up in a U shape curving 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 open. I’ll never forget”.

The pilot’s body slammed into the plane.

In the Canadian documentary series may daytells the pilot what he remembers of the moment the window came out of the plane.

“I remember seeing the windshield sticking out of the plane and then disappearing like a bullet into the distance.

“I was aware that I had gone up. Everything became surreal. I remember being outside the plane, but that didn’t bother me too much. What I remember most is that I couldn’t breathe because the design did not allow 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 point,” says Lancaster.

Rogers, another flight attendant, strapped herself into a chair, hooked the captain’s feet, and held him by the ankles. They thought he was dead.

With 400-mph winds slamming 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.

Amidst the panic in the cockpit, Atchinson, the copilot, managed to hold onto his seat and regain control of the aircraft.

He made desperate attempts to contain the chaos, while the rest of the crew tried to calm down the 81 passengers on board.

“I saw a body hanging out the window”a passenger told the British agency Press Association.

“A flight attendant standing next to us at 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 copilot announced that the plane’s windshield had blown out and that they would attempt an emergency landing.

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

Flight BA5390 landed at 07:55 with passengers and crew in shock but relatively unharmed.

As the plane came to a stop, emergency crews stormed into the cabin to find something no one expected: Tim Lancaster was still alive.

Unconscious and bruised, the pilot was breathing.

Paramedics wondered what a man was like exposed to hurricane-force winds and sub-zero temperatures for 20 minutes managed to survive.

He was treated for multiple fractures, frostbite and a severe concussion, but was back at work a few months later.

What caused the windshield to fall mid-flight?

In its final report, the UK Department of Transport’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) concluded that faulty windscreen maintenance, carried out 27 hours before the aircraft was due to take off, caused it to crash mid-flight.

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

The text emphasizes three points:

In addition, the document recommended, among other things, that the Civil Aviation Authority “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 a thorough audit of labor practicesbe on the text.

The pilot, Tim Lancaster, has recovered in Southampton hospital.

With regard to working conditions, the document found that the workload at the airport from which the aircraft departed was “high” and that adherence to schedules was a “quality indicator”.

About the captain who lay dying, just five months later, Tim Lancaster flew again.