What happened
A special charter flight departed London Airport at 15:16 GMT, bound for Belfast. The aircraft was operated with a total of five crew members and two company employees on board. During the approach to runway 28, the pilot was being guided by a Precision Approach Controller via GCA talkdown. While the captain initially believed weather conditions would allow for visual contact at or above 500 feet, the aircraft began drifting significantly to the right of the runway centerline.
As the aircraft reached approximately half a mile from the touchdown point, the controller instructed the pilot to turn left to correct an overshoot. The pilot acknowledged that the aircraft was overshooting. Witnesses near the airfield reported hearing the engines increase in power during this period. At 16:51, the aircraft type crashed within the airport perimeter, roughly 1,000 feet south of the western end of runway 28. There were 7 fatalities and no survivors.
Findings
Investigations into the crash focused on the aircraft's autopilot and flight instruments. Technical examinations revealed that the autopilot was not engaged and the clutches were not energized at the moment of impact. Experts analyzed the flight path to determine if a stall or a sudden bunt maneuver had occurred, noting that such an action would have required a violent recovery. While investigators considered whether a failure in the flight system or instruments might have deceived the pilot into performing a dangerous maneuver, no mechanical malfunctions or structural failures were identified in the recovered wreckage. Ultimately, the official cause of the accident remained undetermined.