That afternoon even living about 5 miles from the crash site we became aware of persistent emergency vehicle sirens in the distance that did not abate. In those days we could pick up emergency service transmissions and we were soon aware of what had happened. If it had occurred exiting eastbound the crash could have been in the vicinity of my secondary school.
I hadn't realised it was so early, before I began flying out in my job as an engineer. I was going in and out of the country dozens of times a year. There were several accidents in the 70's plus the terrorist hijackings but they were good times. The Trident was my favourite plane, in those days few fights were anywhere near full. You could sit looking backwards which made landing so much easier. It was quite a thrill to look down the runway at LHR to see Concorde taxiing onto the runway behind you. My last was a Trident 4 flight from Istanbul direct to LHR after a long hot summer, the sky was clear all the way. The Captain came into the First Class to eat his meal. There were two passengers in there, Myself and an American. The Captain pointed out Zagreb airport below. Next in came the flight engineer. The American asked who was flying this Goddam plane? "George" came the reply to which the Captain smiled at me, the American relaxed with a cigar and drink. Some time later I saw in a newspaper that a Trident 4 had collided with a DC10 over Zagreb with no survivors. The report carried photos of what looked like the same crew that I had flown with from Istanbul. 1976 Zagreb mid-air collision - Wikipedia Sorry if I've nicked your thread I seem to have a bit of a habit of going off at tangents. Perhaps I should write a book about my flight experiences, might be more interesting.
British European Airways Flight 548 - Wikipedia British European Airways Flight 548 was a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels that crashed near Staines, Surrey, England, soon after take-off on 18 June 1972, killing all 118 people on board. The accident became known as the Staines air disaster
