Tagged the ‘Munich Air Disaster’, the tragedy cost United a loss of their best players as at the era of ‘Busby Babes’.
Today on the official website of Manchester United is a commemoration of the February 6 tragedy which took away the lives of 11 team members who were returning from a European Cup game against Red Star Belgrade of Serbia, 57 years ago.
Tagged the ‘Munich Air Disaster’, the tragedy cost United a loss of their best players as at the era of ‘Busby Babes’.
The plane crashed at its third attempt to take off at the Munich-Reim Airport, instantly killing 20 of the 44 on board and a later count of 3, to bring the total fatalities to 23 and 21 survivors.
The Pilot, James Thain was blamed for the incident but was later cleared ten years after.
Captain Thain made for a third attempt after twice delaying take-off following an Ice Surge on the runway, fearing they would be far behind from time, he started the engine but only moved a few distance before the plane hit the Ice slush, ran through a fence at the end of the runway and then hitting a house.
Amongst the dead were eight players and three officials: Walter Crickmer, Tom Curry, Bert Whalley, Roger Byrne, Geoff Bent, Mark Jones, Eddie Colman, David Pegg, Duncan Edwards, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan
He had stopped in Munich to refuel for the flight back to Manchester as it could not fly straight from Belgrade to England, which then had not been granted a fly-straight class.
United legends poured in tributes from Twitter and other social networks with the #FlowersOfManchester tag, which now decribes the glorious days of the players.
