Bobby Charlton, one of the members of the Manchester United team who is in hospital in Munich together with some of the other survivors, has described here how the crash took place. He said that the aircraft tried to take off once and had even got as far as the end of the runway but there appeared to be something wrong and it came back.
All the passengers got out and went into the waiting-rooms, where they waited for some ten minutes. They were then told that whatever had been wrong had now been put right, and they got back into the aircraft, which then taxied to the runway and made another attempt to get off the ground. But just as it approached the airport boundary something went wrong again and it caught the edge of the house with its wing just outside the airport.
HOUSE ON FIRE
The story is now taken up by one of the eye-witnesses, the driver of a German car, who saw the aircraft hit the house, then go up and down again in the air, coming to rest between two houses. Almost immediately, one of the houses, on which part of the tail had come to rest, was on fire. Another German eye-witness, a lorry driver, who happened to be standing at the back of his house when he heard the crash, ran towards the aircraft straight away; when he got there, after a few minutes, there was already a car which had come in from the road near by standing there and a child, who had been thrown out of the aircraft, apparently only slight injured, was being carried to the car to be taken away.
An injured member of the crew had also got out, and was trying to pull one of the passengers out. The aircraft had broken into two parts. The right wing and the right part of the cock-pit were relatively undamaged, but the left wing was broken off at the point where the engine had been. The engine had been wrenched out of the body of the wing. People who had been thrown clear, and some who had by now been pulled out, were lying about on the snow.
CAPTAIN HELPS
It had been snowing at the time of the crash, and it was still snowing in the evening, after the rescue operations had been completed. The captain, who did not appear to be seriously injured, was helping with the rescue operations. He had explained to the rescuers that the co-pilot was jammed in the cockpit. It was necessary to saw through to him from underneath the aircraft and to get him out in that way.
Ray Wood, of the Manchester United team, who is also in hospital here, asked that his wife in Manchester should be told that he was only slightly injured and that she was not to worry about him. Another slightly injured member of the team in the same hospital is Mr Morgans.
