James Thain

James Thain (8 February 1921 – 6 August 1975) was a British aviator and former Royal Air Force officer. He was command pilot aboard BEA Flight 609 when it crashed in the 1958 Munich air disaster.

Military career
Thain started his career as a Royal Air Force sergeant. He was later promoted to warrant officer and was given an emergency commission in as an acting pilot officer in April 1944. He was promoted pilot officer on probation in September that year. He was subsequently made flight lieutenant in May 1948, receiving a permanent commission in that rank in 1952. He retired from the RAF to join British European Airways (BEA).

The Munich incident, retirement and death
On 6 February 1958, Thain was pilot in command of an Airspeed AS.57 Ambassador (Lord Burghley, G-ALZU) flying out of Munich. The aircraft was carrying the Manchester United football team back from a match in Yugoslavia.

After two failed attempts, due to problems with boost surging in one of the Ambassador's engines, Thain chose to make a third try, hoping to stay on schedule, rather than remain overnight for maintenance at Munich. The aircraft failed to take off and crashed, killing twenty-three people. Twenty people died on board, and three died later in hospital.

The German airport authorities blamed Thain for the accident at the time, saying he did not de-ice the aircraft's wings, despite eyewitness statements indicating deicing was not required. On Christmas Day 1960 he was dismissed by BEA and spent the next decade trying to clear his name. He never flew for an airline again.

It was subsequently learned slush on the runway had made it impossible for the Ambassador to gain flying speed. Thain was cleared in 1968. Despite this finding, German authorities continued to blame Thain.

Retiring to his poultry farm in southern England, Thain died after suffering a heart attack in August 6, 1975, at the age of 54, in Berkshire. He was buried 3 days after his death.

Dramatisations
On 10 January 2006, the BBC showed a drama/documentary retelling the story in the series Surviving Disaster. However, the programme was met with criticism from former United winger Albert Scanlon, who claimed that it was full of inaccuracies despite the production having consulted him about the content of the documentary. Errors in the programme included the depiction of Jimmy Murphy giving a pre-match team talk in Belgrade, despite his being in Cardiff at the time, and the plane being shown as only half full when nearly every seat was occupied.

On 6 February 2008, the 50th anniversary of the crash, UKTV History re-ran Surviving Disaster.

Canadian TV series Mayday, shown on British TV as Air Crash Investigation, covered the crash in one of its episodes, which was first broadcast in December 2011.