Survivor’s quiet tributes to victims of Kegworth disaster

Survivor’s quiet tributes to victims of Kegworth disaster

15 January 2014

THE 25th anniversary of one of Britain’s worst air disasters was marked on Wednesday. The Kegworth air crash claimed the lives of 47 people on a British Midland flight from Heathrow to Belfast on January 8, 1989.

Among those tragically killed after the Belfast-bound Boeing 737 developed engine problems and crash landed were Newcastle couple John and Karin Campbell. Among the local survivors were Brian Hodges from Downpatrick, Alistair McCrory, from Downpatrick and Alan Johnston from Strangford.

The 25th anniversary was officially marked in the Leicestershire town of Kegworth, but Mr. Johnston, with around a dozen survivors, paid tribute at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast.

He and his wife Phyllis attended the weekly Evensong service, which was not a specific Kegworth memorial. However, special mention was made of those who lost their lives.

Indeed the cathedral hosts a memorial scroll bearing the air-crash victims’ names on the wall of the Cathedral’s ambulatory.

Mr. Johnston (87) explained that not all the bereaved families or survivors wanted to remember specific landmark anniversaries.

“Every year is bad for people who have lost loved ones,” he said. “There is a reticence about being too dogmatic about the 25th.”

He said he also couldn’t imagine many more major anniversaries being marked.

Mr. Johnston had been travelling home alone on Flight 92 after visiting his new-born granddaughter in London and was immersed in a book almost to the moment of impact.

He remembers reassuring a nervous passenger that these planes could “fly on one engine”, not thinking human error would lead the crew on this occasion to turn off the wrong engine when problems developed.

Mr. Johnston was rescued by members of the RNLI who had been at a boat show in London and were driving home along the MI at the time, and he describes himself as “more dead than alive” when pulled from the wreckage.

Two months in hospital were followed by intense physiotherapy for injuries including a shattered pelvis and injuries to his rib and foot.

However, Mr. Johnston considers himself one of the lucky ones, and he continues to fly and retain a lifelong interest in aviation.

He was also one of the founders of the Air Safety Action Group who successfully campaigned for improved airline safety measures in the wake of the Kegworth crash.

Undertaking a brief period of counselling for post-traumatic stress, Mr. Johnston believes his interest in aviation put him in a “rather unusual position” when it came to his relatively quick recovery.

“Basically my working life has been on the fringes of aviation,” he said. “I have always had an interest in flying.

“It started back when Sir Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus offered flights for kids aged nine or ten.

“So I am interested in anything to do with flying.

“I have come to regard it as one of the most interesting things that has happened in my life.”