The Busby Babes: Part Six

The players and club officials enjoyed a cocktail reception at the British Embassy after the game before beginning their journey home the following day aboard BEA Flight 609. The Elizabethan class aircraft, the 'Lord Burleigh', landed in heavy snow for refuelling at the Munich-Riem airport in West Germany. It would never to fly again.

Twice the aircraft tried to take off, and twice it failed. After each attempt the passengers were all asked to return to the terminal building. The second time Duncan Edwards, like some of the other players, was convinced they would not be travelling home that afternoon, and so sent his landlady a telegram which read: 'All flights cancelled. Returning home tomorrow. Duncan.' The telegram was delivered at 5pm.

Despite their reading of the situation the passengers were called to the plane for a third time. In the cabin the laughing and joking of the previous attempts was replaced by a sense of apprehension.

At 3.04pm Captain James Thain attempted a third take off. As a result of the slush and snow on the runway the plane could not reach take off speed and so failed to gain height.

The plane crashed through the airport's perimeter fence and careered into an unoccupied house. The port wing and part of the tail was ripped off and the house caught fire. The port side of the cockpit slammed into a tree, the starboard side of the plane hit a wooden hut causing the fuel truck and tyres it housed to explode.

Twenty-one of the 44 people aboard perished in the crash, while a further two were to succumb to their injuries in hospital. Seven of the players who had played in Belgrade a day earlier died instantly: Geoff Bent (25), Roger Byrne (28), Eddie Colman (21), Mark Jones (24), David Pegg (22), Tommy Taylor (26) and Liam 'Billy' Whelan (22).

Duncan Edwards lost his fight for life 15 days later on February 21, while the careers of Johnny Berry and Jackie Blachflower were ended as a result of the injuries they sustained.

The bodies of the dead were flown back to Manchester and lay overnight in the Old Trafford gymnasium before being collected by the families.

Over 100,000 people lined streets as the hearses delivered their coffins to the stadium and thousands more lined the streets for the subsequent funerals and memorial services, while two minutes of silence were observed at matches across the country.

Busby himself, the father of the team, suffered fractured ribs, a punctured lung and injuries to his legs. So grave was his condition that the last rites were administered in the hours following the crash. Two weeks on and entombed in an oxygen tent Busby was again read the last rites.