Today marks the 50th anniversary of the crash of Trident 1C G-ARPI shortly after take off from London Heathrow with the loss of all 119 souls on board.
For some this remains a controversial accident; who did what and why on that ill-fated flight? Why was the crew formed with two very inexperienced pilot's? What is certain is that the captain, PF, was becoming increasingly incapacitated by an undetected heart condition, the aeroplane never achieved its lowest target speed, that the leading edge droops were retracted well below minimum retraction speed, that the stick push system was deliberately selected OFF and that whoever selected the drops UP did not appreciate the consequences of his actions.
The flight lasted less than three minutes from brakes off to impact; there were initially two survivors but both succumbed to their injuries shortly after, despite the best efforts of the emergency services to save them.
There wre a number of repercussions from this accident: the Trident was fitted with a baulk on the droops which would prevent their retraction with flaps up and below minimum droop retraction speed, crew rostering practices were amended, exercising ECGs were introduced to pilot medicals and, perhaps most importantly, Cockpit Vouce Recorders were introduced. Initially seen as a "spy in the cockpit" the CVR became one of the accident investigators' most useful resources.
RIP those aboard Bealine 548 this day in 1972.