Social media users have been left stu-nned after finding out about the incredible story of Captain Tim Lancaster – the British Airways pilot who got su*ked out of the cockpit mid-flight and amazingly lived to tell the tale.
A Twitter user shared photos from a reenactment of what happened, writing: “In 1990 the window of a plane fell off and one of the pilots got su*ked out so they just held onto his legs while the plane landed.”
And it turns out that the pilot in question is a bloke called Tim Lancaster, who was flying from Birmingham, England, to Malaga, Spain, in June 1990 when two of the plane’s six cockpit windows sha-ttered as they traveled over Oxfordshire.
Lancaster ended up being thrown out of his seat and su*ked out of the window, while the fo-rce also blew the cockpit door from its hinges and nearly kn-ocked flight attendant Nigel Ogden to the ground.
Thankfully, Ogden was able to rush into the cockpit to gr-ab Lancaster’s legs, just as he disappeared out of the window. Ogden started slipping out of the opening as well, but a second cabin crew member called John Heward rushed into the cockpit and grabbed him by the belt, before another flight attendant strapped himself into the a pilot’s chair and helped hold the chain of people down.
Meanwhile, Lancaster was exp-osed to the elements on the outside of the plane, holding on for dear life at 23,000ft – while co-pilot Alistair Atchinson took over the controls, sho-uting ‘Mayday! Mayday!’ into the radio.Ogden told the Sydney Morning Herald: “I wh!pped round and saw the front windscreen had disappeared and Tim, the pilot, was going out through it – he had been su*ked out of his seatbelt and all I could see were his legs.
“I jumped over the control column and gra-bbed him round his wa!st to avoid him going out completely.”His shirt had been pu-lled off his back and his body was bent upwards, doubled over around the top of the aircraft.”His legs were ja-mmed forward, disconnecting the autopilot, and the flight door was resting on the controls, sending the plane hu-rtling down at nearly 650kmh through some of the most conge-sted skies in the world.”
He continued: “I thought I was going to lose him, but he ended up bent in a U-shape around the windows.”His face was banging aga!nst the window with blo-od coming out of his nose and the side of his head, his arms were fla!ling and seemed about 6 feet long. Most te-rrifyingly, his eyes were wide open. I’ll never forget that sight as long as I live.”Amazingly, co-pilot Atchinson managed to get the plane under control, and the aircraft eventually landed at Southampton Airport, where the crew was met by the emergency services.
Even more incredibly, Lancaster managed to surv!ve the ordeal, suffe-ring several fra-ctures and frostb!te. The shocking story was the subject of a documentary called Air Cr-ash Investigation – Blow Out, which featured a recreation of what happened and aired on National Geographic in 2005. But now Lancaster and his crew have found fame all over again in the viral world, with screenshots of the reenactment racking up more than 170,000 likes and 38,000 retweets.
This Article First Published On LADBIBLE