Trident A History

Frank McKim provides a general history of the Trident aircraft charting its evolution, experience with airlines and subsequent withdrawal. Trident was the world's first tri-jet and the first civilian aircraft certified to be able to land automatically in Cat B conditions, in a fog. Notoriously, in 1972, 118 people were killed when a BEA Trident airliner ploughed into waste ground only a few yards from the Staines bypass on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport-London. There were no survivors when the plane crashed, less than four minutes after taking off for Brussels. The impact broke the plane's spine, ripping off the tail section and sending it spinning through the air. The book is written with the assistance of Neil Lomax of the Trident Preservation Society in Manchester; and includes pictures of their recent Trident restoration project.