There were a few sore heads the next morning when the United party made its way to Zemun Airport. The night before, the celebrations, which had started with an official banquet at the British Embassy, had gone on into the early hours of the morning. It was 3am when captain Roger Byrne and centre-half Mark Jones finally arrived back at the team hotel, two hours later than Matt Busby’s imposed curfew. More sedately, Bobby, David Pegg and Dennis Viollet had been drinking at the hotel bar, while goalkeeper Harry Gregg – the big Ulsterman recently bought by Matt Busby from Doncaster Rovers – organized a serious card school in his room.
As they prepared to embark on the journey home, there was a delay over Johnny Berry’s papers, as Harry Gregg remembers: ‘Digger Berry had lost his passport and you didn’t get out of there without it. So everybody’s pockets were turned out – no luck. It was a huge, overbearing lady who handled the immigration and eventually it was decided to unload the hold, where they found Johnny’s passport in his suitcase. So we set off late.’ Already tired and hungover, the team had seen quite enough of Belgrade by the time they were finally allowed to get on board the plane, a BEA twin engine Elizabethan specially chartered by United for the Yugoslavian trip. Those in the know were pleased to be flying in an Elizabethan, for not only was this the aircraft used by the Queen, but it also had an excellent safety record. Not one of this type had ever crashed.
After the exertions of the last few days, the passengers were only too anxious to get home, especially because United had an important League game against Wolves, their biggest rivals, on Saturday. But the journey back to Manchester was not a direct one, for the plane had to stop for refuelling at Munich. It was a bright, crisp morning when the airliner left Yugoslavia. As the Elizabethan made its way across the German border, however, the sky began to darken, turning from blue to dull grey, while the temperature fell dramatically. By the time the pilots began their descent, a thick layer of snow and slush was forming on the tarmac of Munich airport. Once the plane had landed, the passengers were told to disembark, for the refuelling was due to take at least 40 minutes. The Chronicle journalist Frank Taylor described the experience of leaving the cabin: ‘As soon as the door was opened the wind gusted in, bitingly cold, as though it had blown in from the frozen wastes of Siberia. Duncan Edwards led the rush down the airliner’s steps, with sleet lashing into the face like a razor. “Get your snow shoes on, lads. Short studs are no use in this stuff,” he called over his shoulder as he picked his way carefully over the squelchy treacherous surface of slush into the warmth of the airport lounge.’
Inside the airport, Bobby, like some of the others, wandered around the shops looking at souvenirs, and then had a coffee. At 2.15pm, an announcement was made that the refuelled aircraft was now ready for boarding. As the players trooped back through the biting gale, Roger Byrne noticed that the wheel tracks of the plane, made only 40 minutes earlier on landing, were now almost invisible because of the snow. Yet, despite the poor weather, there was little sense of unease amongst the passengers. They were looking forward to lunch, a game of cards, and a kip. ‘We’ll be landing in Manchester around 7pm,’ a steward told Bill Foulkes, the big full-back.
At 2.19pm, the pilots, Captain James Thain, the commander of the flight, and his co-pilot, Captain Ken Rayment, were given permission to taxi for take-off. The passengers heard the familiar purr of the engines revving up, and then the Elizabethan began to move down the runway. ‘I remember looking out of the window as I always did to see the wheels leave the ground and mark the moment we became airborne. But just as the twin engines burst into a full-throated roar and we started to gather speed, the brakes were jammed hard and the Elizabethan came to a grinding halt. Dennis Viollet and I grinned at each other as we were jolted forward and everybody laughed and joked about the incident. We had stopped halfway down the runway – nobody knew why,’ wrote Bobby later.
The reason the plane had stopped was because the pilots had noticed an uneven tone in the engines and a sudden fluctuation in the port pressure gauge. This was caused by a problem known as ‘boost surging’, as Captain James Thain later explained: ‘Boost surging was not uncommon with Elizabethans at the time, particularly at airports like Munich because of their height above sea level. Over-rich mixture caused the power surge, but though the engines sounded uneven there was not much danger that the take-off power of the aircraft would be affected. The Elizabethans were very powerful in their day and you could have taken off on one engine.’ Confident in the effectiveness of his aircraft, Thain decided to make a second attempt at taking off. But this time, he and Rayment agreed to open the throttles more slowly, because a quick opening was known to be one of the causes of boost surging.
At 2.34pm, the plane raced down the runway but once more the take-off had to be abandoned halfway down the runway when Captain Thain noticed that the port pressure was still fluctuating wildly. There was now a mounting sense of anxiety in the cabin. ‘What the hell is going on here!’ yelled Frank Swift, the huge former England goalkeeper who was now working for the News of the World. Some of the passengers lapsed into empty theorizing – one journalist suggested the sludge had short-circuited the plane’s electrical system, a patently absurd idea given that the lights were still working in the cabin. Then a stewardess emerged to tell everyone that there was a slight technical fault. ‘We hope to have it corrected soon but, in the meantime, please disembark and wait in the airport for a further announcement,’ she said. Once again the players and press marched through the snow. ‘Don’t worry, no matter what the fault is, we’re not in any danger. There is a point of no return on the runway where, if the pilot is not happy about the plane, he can still pull up quite safely,’ Frank Taylor, who had served in the RAF, told Bobby as they walked together to the terminal.
It was at this moment that a fateful decision was made by the crew of the Elizabethan. William Black, the station engineer, had been summoned to the cockpit to discuss with Captains Thain and Rayment the problem of boost surging. The pilots explained that they had taken all the recommended steps – such as the more gentle release of the throttle – to eliminate it. Black said that the only alternative was to re-tune the engines, but that would involve an overnight stop. ‘I don’t think that is necessary. After all, the starboard engine has performed normally,’ replied Captain Thain, who decided he would have another go at take-off. He was only reflecting the desire of everyone, manager, players and reporters, to be in Manchester by nightfall.
The passengers, who had just reached the terminal, were now told to return. ‘We had ordered coffees, but we never got them because we had to go back on to the plane,’ recalls Ray Wood, the United reserve keeper. Bill Foulkes felt that the order to return came too suddenly. ‘There was something wrong. I wasn’t happy.’ Some of the journalists were equally surprised that a mechanical fault could have been mended so quickly, for it was barely ten minutes since they had last left their seats. Frank Taylor, with his wartime flying experience, was also worried about the possibility of ice on the wings. In appallingly cold, snowy conditions, he did not see how the wings could have been properly cleared of ice in such a short space of time. He was right to be concerned, for Captain Thain later admitted: ‘Ken and I had not been out of the cockpit but we talked about the snow and looked at the wings from the flight deck. We had lost the film of snow we had noticed before our first departure and decided not to have the wings swept.’
There was now a palpable sense of nervousness as the passengers took their seats. ‘I went into the aircraft and saw the steward, Tom Cable, white as a sheet, strapping