Whenever you step into a plane, you might not think about the precision and perfection that it takes to get these planes flying safely. Planes are designed with careful calculations that have to be executed perfectly to prevent catastrophic failures from happening. However, in 1990, a maintenance crew wasn’t aware of this face and caused a pilot to nearly die mid-flight! Keep on reading to discover what happened and how he survived!
The pilot was Sucked out but saved by other crew members.
In 1990, Pilot Tim Lancaster was operating British Airways Flight 5390. However, just 13 minutes after takeoff, one of the cockpit’s windows flew off and caused Tim to be sucked out of the front window! Other crew members were able to save Tim by holding on to his lower half, which was still in the plane.
While Tim Lancaster was “enjoying” the cold winds outside of the plane at a height of of 17,000 feet, the inside of the cockpit was chaos. Papers were flying around, and crew members were trying to help Tim. Meanwhile, Co-pilot Alastair Atchison was trying to fly the plane. Eventually, Atchison stabilized the plane and landed it safely in Southampton.
What was the cause of the Window Failure?
With Aeroplanes, everything has to be done with extreme caution and perfection, as small mistakes can have huge impacts. Pilot Tim Lancaster nearly lost his life because of one of these mistakes. During one of the scheduled maintenance periods of the plane, the front windows were taken out of the plane. However, the problem occurred when the maintenance crew reassembled the cockpit. They used bolts that were way too small, which caused the window to blow out just 13 minutes after takeoff.
A few months after the incident, Pilot Lancaster returned to flying planes! However, Tim probably made sure to check most plane windows the first few times when he got back into the cockpit!
