Incident
On Monday 8 April 1968, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Flight 712 was a scheduled service from London Heathrow Airport to Sydney, with intermediate stops in Zurich and Singapore. The aircraft, a Boeing 707, suffered an engine failure during takeoff. The failure quickly led to a major fire, and the engine detached from the aircraft while in flight.
Emergency Landing
Despite the fire and engine loss, the flight crew managed to perform a successful emergency landing. However, after landing, confusion over checklists and distractions caused by the presence of a check pilot contributed to the deaths of 5 of the 127 people on board.
Cause
The direct cause of the fire was determined to be the failure of a compressor wheel, which resulted from metal fatigue.