Fire Engulfs Holiday Airliner at Manchester, Five and Fifty Perish

Word arrives from Manchester of a calamity upon the airfield there, two days past, when a chartered airliner of the concern British Airtours, bound for the Grecian isle of Corfu with one hundred thirty-one souls and six of crew aboard, suffered a catastrophic failure of her left engine whilst yet upon the ground, accelerating for her departure.

The pilots, hearing a great thud and supposing a burst tire the cause, abandoned the takeoff; but scarce nine seconds later the fire-warning bells sounded upon the flight deck, and word came that the left engine burned in earnest. It is since determined that a badly repaired part within the engine gave way, its fragments piercing the wing and releasing the fuel within to feed the flame.

Though the pilots brought the craft to a swift halt and evacuation was ordered directly, an ill wind carried the fire against the fuselage before all could escape, and the cabin was overcome with smoke and flame within moments. Three and fifty passengers and two of the crew, five and fifty souls in all, are lost.

The disaster is accounted among the gravest to befall British aviation, and inquiry into the fault of the repair that doomed the engine is said to be already underway.