Aviation Nostalgia Thread

[Sunseekers1990]

One memory I have was when the 737 in my photo, G-BNNJ I think, somehow managed to make an approach one misty Sunday morning, for a Runway 32 landing, but descended around 1 Mile to the East of the glideslope. That took it directly over my house in Moseley Wood Green.
I couldn't believe it when I looked out to see a 737 descending towards my house and it continues to descend beyond it, before finally pulling up over Pounds Farm which was behind my house.
Ten minutes later it made a normal Runway 32 approach and landed safely.
Such a shame Sunseekers went under. They introduced destinations in Greece for LBA that we had never dreamed of at the time.

I spoke to dad about this, he has no recollection of it im afriad. But you are right, the Greece routes offered at the time were not only good for travellers but he is still very good friends with a lot of people across Greece in the resorts and the tour operators out there as they were just so grateful for the business. He remembers Messonghi in corfu being nothing but a dessert town and now there are numerous large hotels and restaurants as an example.

 

[Bigman]

I seem to remember seeing BNNJ on stand back in 1993 when I flew to Brussels on a Sabena EMB120.

 

[oldendays]

BNNJ had a number of operating angles. An ex-Dan Air 737, owned by British Airways, crewed mainly by ex-Dan Air pilots. And on the Air Foyle AOC.

 

[tonysmith]

 

[tonysmith]

Found this on my phone from 2016

 

[DH106]

Sunseekers1990 - ask your Dad if he remembers flying to Gigha Island (off the Scotish coast) in his Cessna 182 with Rob Murgatroyd and me in the back. Would have been around 92/93 ish - around the time I was doing my PPL.
We also flew to KirkBride at least once - the small airfield up near Carlisle that you can taxi your plane into a pub car park on the airfield boundary. Remember having lunch there.
Went out with one of the hosties flying for SunSeekers for a short time in 93.
Happy memories!

 

[rollo]

Nice story from the past but not sure about taxying to the pub car park, temptation and all that hostess included!

Nice memories.

 

[DH106]

...not sure about taxying to the pub car park,

I haven't flown into Kirkbride since the 90's, but it's certainly true then that you could park your aircraft in what was the White Hart Hotel's car park.

 

[Sunseekers1990]

Sunseekers1990 - ask your Dad if he remembers flying to Gigha Island (off the Scotish coast) in his Cessna 182 with Rob Murgatroyd and me in the back. Would have been around 92/93 ish - around the time I was doing my PPL.
We also flew to KirkBride at least once - the small airfield up near Carlisle that you can taxi your plane into a pub car park on the airfield boundary. Remember having lunch there.
Went out with one of the hosties flying for SunSeekers for a short time in 93.
Happy memories!

I just called him, he said he has fabulous memories of flying up to kirkbride, myself included, they did a great Sunday lunch there! He said you were luckier then him if you dated one of the hosties as he didnt after divorcing with my mum haha. He loved that Cessna but Rob let someone fly it without my dads permission then crashed it into Blackpool Tower so he was far from impressed. But this wasn't the worst of what Rob got up to, he is in prison now for fraud in my opinion and overloading a plane that landed in a potato field just off from Barton, not sure if you knew?

 

[Sunseekers1990]

View attachment 17029

Oh this brings back memories. Dad had this on lease from an Irish Broker, god this plane must be at least 35 years old now!

 

[a300boy]

Pretty young at 35 years old ! We have a 57 year old Cherokee and a 47 year old Aztec still going st

 

[White Heather]

Oh this brings back memories. Dad had this on lease from an Irish Broker, god this plane must be at least 35 years old now!

If this is the correct photo, this A320 EC-HCZ is only 20 years old, first flight was March 2000.

 

[flyboy]

I just called him, he said he has fabulous memories of flying up to kirkbride, myself included, they did a great Sunday lunch there! He said you were luckier then him if you dated one of the hosties as he didnt after divorcing with my mum haha. He loved that Cessna but Rob let someone fly it without my dads permission then crashed it into Blackpool Tower so he was far from impressed. But this wasn't the worst of what Rob got up to, he is in prison now for fraud in my opinion and overloading a plane that landed in a potato field just off from Barton, not sure if you knew?

I can find no record of any aircraft having crashed into Blackpool Tower. That surely would have been a major disaster with many casualties?

 

[DH106]

I think this is the accident report for that incident at Blackpool:-

Reims Cessna F182Q Skylane, G-BGFH, 16 May 1993

www.gov.uk

The Cessna seems to have just missed the tower but hit a vehicle.
Interestingly, although the report lists both the Cessna 182 and the car to have been "damaged beyond repair", the Cessna seems to have rebuilt as it was involved in a further incident in 1997:-

Reims Cessna F182Q, G-BGFH, 28 May 1997

www.gov.uk

...and yet another in 2007, where it seems to have been finally written off:-

Accident Cessna F182Q Skylane (Reims) G-BGFH, Wednesday 23 May 2007

Written off (destroyed) 23-05-2007 when force landed due to engine failure at Aberdour, 2.5 nautical miles north-west of Burntisland, Fife, Scotland. The two persons on board (pilot and o...

aviation-safety.net

Looks like the month of May wasn't very lucky for good old "Foxtrot Hotel" !

 

[DH106]

Nice piccie of G-BGFH here:-

G-BGFH | Reims-Cessna F182Q Skylane II | Private | Colin Hollywood | JetPhotos

A participant at the 11th Great Vintage Flying Weekend.. G-BGFH. Reims-Cessna F182Q Skylane II. JetPhotos.com is the biggest database of aviation photographs with over 6 million screened photos online!

www.jetphotos.com

 

[danairb6er]

I was actually working in Blackpool tower on the day that G-FH had its mishap. If I remember rightly the wind picked up from calm to around a 20 knot crosswind out of nowhere. My colleague in the tower had literally bought a brand new, top of the range Rover which was parked up in the ATC car park behind the tower.

I remember clearing FH to land and expressing my concern about the crosswind. The aircraft made a perfect landing prior to veering off the runway onto the grass, applying full power and trying to get airborne again. Unfortunately it was pointing straight at the tower, the crosswind was now a tail wind and it rose to about 50 feet prior to stalling.

Being a company man, I threw my headset down and did a runner onto the balcony, my colleague for reasons only known to him threw himself down the tower stairs into its flight path! Luckily the wing dip from the stall meant that it missed the tower by a few feet before planting itself nose down into the roof of my mates Rover.

As my mate emerged back up into the tower, I remember him saying that we had a lucky escape before I tapped him on the shoulder and told him to look into the car park. I'd never seen a grown man cry before

There were a few funny side stories which we can all laugh about now as nobody was amazingly badly injured. It was a weekend with no management on duty so the technicians had taken their Commordore 64 computer into work and were in the middle of a WW2 dogfight. As my mates Spitfire got shot down the Cessna dived past their window around 6 feet away before they heard the crunch. My mate turned to the other guy before commenting about how realistic these modern games were

The following day my colleague got a call from a director on the Channel 4 Big Breakfast show to go down to London and have an interview with Paula Yates on the famous bed. As he was still sulking he declined, I did offer my services but they weren't interested as it wasn't my car!

I got my claim to fame when an article appeared on page 3 in the sun with the headline "controller Lands plane onto his mates new car" obviously the only time that I've ever got near to getting considered for page 3.

Happy days at a crazy airport!

 

[oldendays]

Fascinating story, danairb6er, and welcome aboard. Your pseudonym suggests a past connection with either Leeds Bradford, Glasgow or Dan-Air, unless I'm mistaken!

 

[White Heather]

And there was me thinking that it had crashed into THE Blackpool Tower!

 

[Dave 1959]

And there was me thinking that it had crashed into THE Blackpool Tower!

Same here Heather,which is why ATC at Blackpool refer to THAT tower as"The Tall Tower" in radio transmissions as opposed to the much shorter ATC one.

 

[DH106]

What happened to page 69? Did some stuff get deleted from earlier?