James Thain (8 February 1921 – 6 August 1975) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

aviator and former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

officer. He was command pilot aboard BEA Flight 609 when it crashed in the 1958 Munich air disaster.

Military career

Thain started his career as a

sergeant. He was later promoted to

warrant officer Warrant officer (WO) is a rank or category of ranks in the armed forces of many countries. Depending on the country, service, or historical context, warrant officers are sometimes classified as the most junior of the commissioned ranks, the mos ...

and was given an emergency commission as an acting pilot officer in April 1944. He was promoted to pilot officer on probation in September that year. He was subsequently made flight lieutenant in May 1948, receiving a permanent commission in that rank in 1952. He retired from the RAF to join

British European Airways British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974. BEA operated to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from airports around the United Kingdom. The a ...

(BEA).

The Munich incident, retirement and death

On 6 February 1958, Thain was pilot in command of an

Airspeed In aviation, airspeed is the speed of an aircraft relative to the air. Among the common conventions for qualifying airspeed are: * Indicated airspeed ("IAS"), what is read on an airspeed gauge connected to a Pitot-static system; * Calibrated ...

AS.57 Ambassador (''Lord Burghley'', G-ALZU) flying out of

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. The aircraft was carrying the Manchester United football team back from a match in Yugoslavia. After two failed take off attempts, caused by problems with boost surging in one of the Ambassador's engines, Thain chose to make a third try, hoping to stay on schedule, rather than remain overnight for maintenance at Munich. The aircraft failed to take off and crashed, killing twenty-three people. Twenty people died on board, and three died later in hospital. The German airport authorities blamed Thain for the accident at the time, saying he did not de-ice the aircraft's wings, despite eyewitness statements indicating de-icing was not required. On Christmas Day 1960 he was dismissed by BEA and spent the next decade trying to clear his name. He never flew for an airline again.death notice
in ''

Flight International ''Flight International'' is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", it is the world's old ...

''. 14 August 1975, p. 210. Retrieved 4 July 2015. It was later learned that slush on the runway had made it impossible for the Ambassador to gain flying speed. Thain was cleared in 1968. Despite this finding, German authorities continued to blame Thain. Retiring to his poultry farm in southern England, Thain died after suffering a heart attack on 6 August 1975, at the age of 54, in Berkshire.

Notes

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thain, James Survivors of aviation accidents or incidents 1921 births 1975 deaths Royal Air Force officers Royal Air Force pilots of World War II