By Jamil Kato
On March 30, 1998, Leeds United suffered a dismal 3-0 defeat at West Ham United, failing to show up in any meaningful way. Match reports filed for the following morning recorded a mistake for the first goal, a mistake for the second and a mistake for the third; blunders all around. At the time, it seemed things couldn’t get any worse for George Graham’s side.
Little did they know, of course, that less than three years later, they would embark on the club’s golden generation, reaching the Champions League semi-finals after a victory over Deportivo La Coruaa. This period would see players like Harry Kewell, Jonathan Woodgate, and Lee Bowyer lead the reawakening of a sleeping giant under David O’Leary, reestablishing the Lilywhites’ status as one of England’s juggernaut football clubs.
However, they were facing much larger issues at that moment. While the squad prepared for a quiet, introspective journey home, the events that followed showed that matters would, indeed, worsen, despite the overarching belief that the defeat was punishment enough. Bryn Law, the BBC Radio Leeds commentator, quipped afterward: “The only good thing about what happened next was that it stopped people talking about the result.” At that time, though, it was no laughing matter, as the entire Leeds United class of ’98 found themselves flirting with death, subjects of an air disaster.
The atmosphere was tense as Leeds United returned from their disastrous Monday night defeat against West Ham, but nothing could have prepared the players for what was to come, as the team were forced into an emergency landing shortly after takeoff. Reflecting on that night, Lee Bowyer, on a recent episode of ‘Let’s Be Having You! The 00s Football Podcast’ recalled:
“At the time, we had obviously lost to West Ham, two or three-nil on a Monday night and I’ll never forget, because that was probably the only time that George [Graham] made me fly home after a London game, because he used to let me stay home and see my family. But because we were so bad, he said ‘no, you’re going back.’”
As they boarded a small propeller aircraft in the dead of night, the weight of the defeat lingered heavily. Suddenly, though, as they were climbing, a loud bang shattered the silence. “We heard a big bang, and then we looked out the window and saw the engine on our side had blown. So, now, it’s on fire.” Panic set in as players stood up, shouting in fear, “Take it down, take it down!”
The situation escalated quickly. “To cut a long story short, we’re coming down to crash-land, but then we come down at such an angle that the front wheel then breaks.” The chaos in the cabin intensified, and fear took hold. “Your mind starts playing games. You look out the window and convince yourself it’s going to blow up because, in the movies, that’s what happens. It’s just going to blow up; that’s it, we’re dead.”
In a moment that felt like an eternity, they crash-landed, the plane’s nose digging into the ground. Bowyer continued:
“Everyone’s trying to rush out as the plane’s nose is in the dirt. Afterward, the fireman said the plane should have exploded within 30 seconds to a minute, so we were really lucky.”
They were fortunate to have landed at Stansted Airport, known for having the longest runway in Europe. “We were also lucky that it was Stansted because we were able to go up and land at the same time. But the normal procedure is to carry on, turn around, and then land. The fireman said, if we had to do that, it would have blown up.” Bowyer finished his story by joking: “Now I say to anyone who’s a nervous flyer to fly with me, as it can’t happen twice, surely?”
John Hackett’s first officer, Gary Lucas, had responsibility for flying the plane back to Leeds. It was standard procedure for the pilots to take turns. An air accident investigation report published in December 2001 detailed how passengers saw sparks coming from the engine on the plane’s right wing as it accelerated down the runway but in the cockpit, they had no warning of what was coming.
Black box recordings indicated that, three or four seconds after take-off, the engine exploded. Commotion was heard in the background. A fractured turbine disk, weakened through wear-and-tear, tore through it and set it alight.
When the engine blew up, Hackett, as the senior pilot on board, immediately took over control of the plane from Lucas. They were less than 100 feet off the ground at that point. Protocol advised a captain in that situation to continue into the air and starve the fire of oxygen, but Hackett’s knowledge of other air disasters of similar nature ending in catastrophe saw his heroics spare the lives of everyone on board as he went against standard procedure and landed the aircraft on the same strip of runway immediately after taking off.
22 years ago my dad Captain John Hackett saved the lives of Leeds United players & management. This is him talking about it 2 years ago @bbclooknorth. Now in his 80s he’s at home bored (but safe) wishing he could be at his job at @Avro_herimuseum @BrynLaw @LUFC pic.twitter.com/OL7QWiJWMx — Carole Hackett 🌹 (@CaroleHackettOV) March 31, 2020
Had the air crash been fatal, then it could have claimed the lives of all 44 passengers and crew, as well as the entire 1998 Leeds United Football Team. Although many will find it difficult to remember the moment, as the press didn’t make a big deal out of the situation, there have been attempts since to give Captain John Hackett the credentials he deserves for his heroics.
Carole and Alex Hackett, the proud daughter and grandson of the pilot, made it their mission to achieve just that, setting up a website called ‘Leeds United Air Crash Memories’. The page celebrates the life-saving actions of the crew (Captain John Hackett, First Officer Garry Lucas, Helen Hammond and Nicola Lomas) and is a place for passengers, crew and family like me to share articles, footage and memories of the incident, looking back over all the wonderful things that have happened over the years since. It includes videos from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Lee Bowyer, among others, who’ll forever be indebted to the pilot’s bravery and quick-thinking.
“Not a day goes by without it crossing my mind,” Mr Hackett told the BBC in 2018. “The whole night sky lit up. Our first thoughts were it was a bomb.”
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