1954 Prestwick air disaster

The 1954 Prestwick air disaster occurred in the early morning of Christmas Day, 1954. A British Overseas Airways Corporation Boeing 377 Stratocruiser crashed on landing at Prestwick Airport, Scotland; 28 of the 36 on board were killed.

The Stratocruiser was on a flight from Heathrow Airport, England to New York, United States with scheduled stop-overs at Manchester Airport, in Northern England and Prestwick Airport in Scotland. Due to the bad weather it was decided to fly directly to Prestwick and the flight was delayed while it waited for a Manchester passenger to be brought to London. The aircraft originally scheduled to operate the flight left Heathrow at 21:43 GMT but it returned to London at 22:53 with a mechanical problem, the passengers and crew were moved to another aircraft which left for Prestwick at 01:05 on 25 December. Only four of twenty-five passengers were booked onward to New York; the rest were to leave the flight at Prestwick. The eleven crew members were also due to be relieved at Prestwick and be replaced with a new crew.

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