Today is the anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster, when at 3.04pm on this day in 1958, the British European Airways Flight 609, crashed on its third attempt to take off on a slush-covered run way at the Munich-Riem Airport, in what was then West Germany.
The Manchester United team, known as the Busby Babes, United manager Matt Busby's youthful squad, and officials, press and various others linked to the match, had watched their club play their European Cup Quarter-final tie (the equivalent of today's European Champions' League) at Red Star Belgrade.
Twenty three passengers, including eight from the Manchester United "youthful team" were killed, with an average age of 23 years old. Having won the English First Division (top one then) in the previous season, United were looking forward to dominate in the European Cup that season and all being well, to succeed in English football for the coming decade "at least".
United had "swaggered" into the European Cup semi-final and had beaten Red Star 2-1 at Old Trafford. In Belgrade, Dennis Viollet had scored within 90 seconds and then had a headed goal disallowed fourteen minutes later. Bobby Charlton scored with a classic long shot from 30 yards, on 30 minutes, making it 2-0 and minutes later added another as the "great" Duncan Edwards created havoc in the Belgrade defence.
Red Star faught back in the second half, scoring three and drawing level, but the Yugoslavs needed another goal to force a play-off. It was United's win and a chance to take on the great Real Madrid.
In the "wake" of the Superga disaster, clubs would split their party and send them on separate planes. United did not. Their return flight from Belgrade, stopped at a snowy and icy Munich Airport to refuel where it was snowing. Following two aborted attempts to take off for the next "leg" of the journey back to England, the plane could not gather enough speed on the icy runway and at 150+ mph, skidded into a house at the end of the runway; 21 of the 44 passengers were killed including 7 of the United squad: Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Billy Whelan. Byrne was the oldest at 28 years. Duncan Edwards, already recognised as a great England player for the future, survived but his injuries caused his death two weeks later.
Centre-half Mark Jones, captain Roger Byrne, full-back Geoff Bent, winger David Pegg, right-half Eddie Colman, inside-right Bill Whelan and centre-forward Tommy Taylor were all killed instantly. Left-half Duncan Edwards was in hospital for two weeks before he too died on 21 February.
Winger Johnny Berry and centre-half Jackie Blanchflower were both injured to such an extent that they never played again, while several of the surviving players were unavailable for a considerable amount of time, as they recovered from their injuries.
Manager Matt Busby was badly injured, and his assistant Jimmy Murphy (who was not on that fateful flight) took charge of the first team until the end of the season, as Busby recovered from his injuries. Club secretary Walter Crickmer and coaches Tom Curry and Bert Whalley were all killed in the crash, which claimed a total of 23 lives.
Red Star asked UEFA to name United as "Honorary Champions" of Europe but the request was not granted. United continued in the tournament with their "makeshift" squad and in May won their First leg of the Semi-Final on May 8th, against AC Milan 2-1, but lost the next leg 0-4 on April 16th.
The 1957–58 European Cup was in its third season. There had been no other such European competition, which this year was won by Real Madrid, who beat AC Milan 3–2 in the Final, in extra time following a 2–2 draw after 90 minutes. This was Real Madrid's third European Cup title in a row.
It was the first time that teams from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland had taken part.
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