Andrew Loudon plays the heroic and incredibly courageous British Airways captain Tim Lancaster, who amazingly survived, against all the odds, being flung out of the cockpit and hanging on to dear life, and it's so hard to believe. Howard Teale played Alestair Atchison, the Co-Pilot, who tried to hold things together, and Benedict Sandiford played the steward Nigel Ogden. Blow Out is a must-see, and I'm surprised this hasn't been made into a movie or a short-run series, and it's amazing hear Captain Lancaster talk about the flight. If there's a movie then I nominate Danny Dyer to play the Captain.
2 Reviews
The Pilot, Not the Tyre.
rmax30482320 October 2016
An airliner after a routine walk around takes off from Malaga, Spain, for England. The airplane is a BAC-111, which has a good record of reliability. At about 35,000 feet, a cockpit windscreen rattles and pops out of its frame. There is immediate decompression. The airplane is filled with mist from condensation. Their speed is 350 miles per hour and the pilot is half sucked out of the empty window by decompression.
His legs catch on the controls and push them forward so that the airplane is in a steep dive. His feet also shove the throttles forward. The speed is now 390 miles per hour (greater than an F-5 tornado) and the temperature is minus 17C. A steward rushes in and hugs the pilots legs. The descent is taking the aircraft through some of the busiest air lanes in the world, adding the danger of a mid-air collision. The rush of air through the cockpit makes it impossible to hear any transmissions from the ground at Heathrow. At this point, any sane person must ask if it could be any worse for the captain, or for anyone else aboard.
Upon being talked down for a lucky and very skillful landing at Southampton, it's found that it couldn't be worse for the captain. His battered body is apparently lifeless. All of the programs in this series reenact the desperate moments in the cockpit but this particular program captures the icy horror most effectively.
Everyone is amazed when the captain's body is removed from the airplane, after twenty-two minutes of exposure, begins to show signs of life. There are several fractures but within five months the captain is able to fly again. The program brings him and two stewards together for a visit.
It doesn't take long for the investigators to discover the immediate cause of the accident. The windscreen blew out because the rivets that held it in place from the outside were a fraction of an inch too small in diameter. The technician who had just replaced the rivets -- the originals were too small as well -- had simply judged the size of the replacements by comparing them to the old ones. His judgment was correct but the size wasn't. The technician had no idea he'd done wrong by not following the book. He was quite open about it. The novelty in this investigation is the use of a psychologist ("human factors") whose contribution isn't spelled out.
His legs catch on the controls and push them forward so that the airplane is in a steep dive. His feet also shove the throttles forward. The speed is now 390 miles per hour (greater than an F-5 tornado) and the temperature is minus 17C. A steward rushes in and hugs the pilots legs. The descent is taking the aircraft through some of the busiest air lanes in the world, adding the danger of a mid-air collision. The rush of air through the cockpit makes it impossible to hear any transmissions from the ground at Heathrow. At this point, any sane person must ask if it could be any worse for the captain, or for anyone else aboard.
Upon being talked down for a lucky and very skillful landing at Southampton, it's found that it couldn't be worse for the captain. His battered body is apparently lifeless. All of the programs in this series reenact the desperate moments in the cockpit but this particular program captures the icy horror most effectively.
Everyone is amazed when the captain's body is removed from the airplane, after twenty-two minutes of exposure, begins to show signs of life. There are several fractures but within five months the captain is able to fly again. The program brings him and two stewards together for a visit.
It doesn't take long for the investigators to discover the immediate cause of the accident. The windscreen blew out because the rivets that held it in place from the outside were a fraction of an inch too small in diameter. The technician who had just replaced the rivets -- the originals were too small as well -- had simply judged the size of the replacements by comparing them to the old ones. His judgment was correct but the size wasn't. The technician had no idea he'd done wrong by not following the book. He was quite open about it. The novelty in this investigation is the use of a psychologist ("human factors") whose contribution isn't spelled out.
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