1.MUNICH AIR DISASTER-MANCHESTER UNITED DIED
1958: United players killed in air disaster
Seven Manchester United footballers are
among 21 dead after an air crash in Munich.
The British European Airways (BEA) plane caught fire shortly after take off this afternoon with 38 passengers and six crew on board.
The footballing world is reeling from the loss of some of its most talented young players - known as the Busby Babes.
Their average age was 24 and they included Roger Byrne - the captain - Mark Jones, Eddie Colman, Tommy Taylor, Liam Whelan, David Pegg and Geoff Bent.
Queen 'deeply shocked'
Eight British sports journalists and several club officials have also been killed.
The Queen has said she is "deeply shocked" and has sent a message of condolence to the Lord Mayor of Manchester and Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation.
The chartered aircraft was bringing the Manchester United entourage back from a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade in Yugoslavia and had stopped at Munich's Riem Airport to refuel.
On the third attempt to take off the plane over-shot the runway, hit a house with its port wing, veered to the right, hit another building and burst into flames.
The fuselage did not catch fire and several crew and passengers went back into the wreckage to rescue the injured.
Team manager Matt Busby was described as being the most seriously hurt and is being given blood transfusions in hospital.
Star striker Bobby Charlton has been treated for slight head injuries.
According to the Chief Executive of BEA, A. H. Milward, there was a heavy snowstorm in Munich and the pilot delayed departure because he was dissatisfied with one of the plane's engines.
This was the first fatal accident for this type of BEA aeroplane, which has carried 2,340,000 passengers on 86,000 flights since it began service in 1952.
The same plane - called Lord Burghley - took the Manchester United entourage out to Belgrade on Monday.
2.
Relatives of the 96 football fans who died
in the Hillsborough disaster are today examining previously unseen documents
about what happened.
The tragedy – a human crush at the start of an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest – is Britain’s worst sporting disaster.
Some 96 Liverpool supporters died in the
crush on the steel-fenced terraces of Sheffield Wednesday's stadium on April 15,
1989, and 766 were injured.
Here we recall how the events unfolded, and why today’s papers matter.
The disaster
Fans flocked to the stadium in their thousands to see what was to be a repeat of the 1988 semi-final, in which Liverpool had faced Nottingham Forest at the same venue.
In his interim report on August 4 1989, Lord Justice Taylor said it was a sell-out, so 54,000 ticket holders were expected.
The timescale of events, outlined by the BBC and Lord Justice Taylor's report, is as follows:
Midday: Liverpool fans begin to arrive at the stadium. Once inside, many make their way on to the terraced lower stand which is ringed with steel fences and laterally divided into "pens".
2.30pm: Thousands of Liverpool supporters are gathered outside the ground at the at the Leppings Lane end. Admission is slow. There is a steady increase in pressure in pens 3 and 4 as more fans come through the tunnel to the favoured area behind the goal.
2.50pm: Pens 3 and 4 on the stand’s lower terrace are full, “to a degree which caused serious discomfort to many well used to enduring pressure on terraces,” Lord Justice Taylor later writes.
He adds: “The numbers at that time were clearly in excess of the maximum density stated by the Home Office Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds… i.e. 54 persons per 10 square metres”.
Indeed, the pens’ combined capacity is 2,200. It is later discovered this should have been reduced to 1,600 because crush barriers installed three years previous did not meet official safety standards.
2.52pm: Police order Gate C – a large exit gate – to be opened to ease the crush outside the ground. Around 2,000 fans enter the ground and head for a tunnel leading directly to pens 3 and 4.
2.59pm: The influx of fans causes severe crushing in pens 3 and 4. Fans begin climbing over fences to escape.
3pm: The match kicks off.
3.05pm: A crush barrier inside pen 3 gives way, causing people to fall on top of each other. Supporters climb border fences.
3.06pm: A policeman runs onto the pitch and orders the referee to stop the match. Supporters try to administrate first aid to the injured.
The aftermath
In his interim report on August 4, 1989, Lord Justice Taylor said the key element of police control at fault was the failure to close off the tunnel leading to pens 3 and 4 once Gate C had been opened.
He also criticised police for their failure to handle the build-up of fans outside the ground properly, and their slow reaction to the unfolding disaster.
Despite this, on August 14, 1990 the director of public prosecutions decided not to bring criminal charges against any individual, group or body on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Inquests in 1991 into the deaths of the victims returned a majority verdict of accidental death, and ruled they were all dead by 3.15pm.
However, many families of the victims disputed this and began to campaign for a fresh inquiry. Anne Williams, the mother of Hillsborough victim Kevin Williams, has called for the government to open a new inquest under section 13 of the Coroner's Act.
She claims Kevin was still alive at 4pm on the day of the disaster, and did not die from traumatic asphyxia.
The families maintain more could have been done to save lives, and that grave mistakes were made in terms of doing so. Of the 96 people who died, only 14 were ever admitted to hospital.
Lies about the Liverpool fans' behaviour were spread in the years that followed, intensified by a splash in the Sun newspaper, headlined THE TRUTH, which blamed them for the tragedy.
As recently as June 2010 the then-culture secretary Jeremy Hunt was forced to apologise after he appeared to suggest hooliganism played a part in the Hillsborough disaster.
Investigations have found violence played no part in the tragedy, and have instead criticised police officers for a "failure of control".
Many families have come to believe there was an organised cover-up involving police and politicians, to avoid criticism. They have long battled for justice, and demanded to see all the documents about what happened.
Until David Cameron apologised today, no one from the government or police has apologised, and no organisation or individual has been sanctioned.
A statement of apology appeared on the Sheffield Wednesday FC website this morning.
In April this year it emerged South Yorkshire police officers reportedly told Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the day after the disaster that "drunken Liverpool fans" outside the football ground had caused it.
According to the prime minister's press secretary at the time, Bernard Ingham, he and Thatcher were given the impression “there were a lot of tanked-up people outside [the stadium]”.
The Guardian reports: “The families of those who died have always believed that this false version of Hillsborough was briefed to Thatcher, and helped form a government stance sympathetic to the police and hostile to the supporters.”
The papers
In October 2011, home secretary Theresa May promised that all government papers – including uncensored cabinet minutes relating to the deaths of the 96 Liverpool fans – would be handed to an independent panel.
Cabinet papers are not usually published in the UK until 30 years after they have been written, but MPs agreed to their disclosure after 140,000 people petitioned MPs to stage a debate demanding the full release of the Hillsborough documents to the panel.
An independent panel of experts, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, has spent 20 months examining 450,000 internal documents relating to the Hillsborough Disaster.
Today, the panel will aim to deliver a definitive narrative into the events of April 15, 1989. Relatives were the first to see the documents.
The Guardian reports: “The city hopes this will be the week that will finally clear the names of the supporters, who were maligned as drunk, ticketless and unruly, a portrayal perpetrated by police and articulated by the Sun newspaper under the headline: ‘The truth’.”
Why they matter
Today is a significant day for the families of the Hillsborough victims for a number of reasons:
Answers: The independent panel is aiming to present a definitive narrative into the events of the disaster. Families hope the truth about what happened on April 15, 1989 will today be revealed.
Verdicts: Many families never received a death certificate for their loved ones because they refused to accept the inquest verdict written on them - accidental death. The Hillsborough Family Support Group hopes there will today be enough evidence for families to go forward to override those inquest verdicts.
Responsibility: Some hope the new documents will prompt an apology, while others hope it will see people involved brought to account. For many the priority is putting to bed the idea that fans were to blame for the tragedy.
The tragedy – a human crush at the start of an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest – is Britain’s worst sporting disaster.
-
Some 96 Liverpool supporters died in the crush on the steel-fenced terraces of Sheffield Wednesday's stadium on April 15, 1989 -
Prime Minister David Cameron has today apologised to the families of those who died in the disaster
Here we recall how the events unfolded, and why today’s papers matter.
The disaster
Fans flocked to the stadium in their thousands to see what was to be a repeat of the 1988 semi-final, in which Liverpool had faced Nottingham Forest at the same venue.
In his interim report on August 4 1989, Lord Justice Taylor said it was a sell-out, so 54,000 ticket holders were expected.
The timescale of events, outlined by the BBC and Lord Justice Taylor's report, is as follows:
Midday: Liverpool fans begin to arrive at the stadium. Once inside, many make their way on to the terraced lower stand which is ringed with steel fences and laterally divided into "pens".
2.30pm: Thousands of Liverpool supporters are gathered outside the ground at the at the Leppings Lane end. Admission is slow. There is a steady increase in pressure in pens 3 and 4 as more fans come through the tunnel to the favoured area behind the goal.
2.50pm: Pens 3 and 4 on the stand’s lower terrace are full, “to a degree which caused serious discomfort to many well used to enduring pressure on terraces,” Lord Justice Taylor later writes.
He adds: “The numbers at that time were clearly in excess of the maximum density stated by the Home Office Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds… i.e. 54 persons per 10 square metres”.
Indeed, the pens’ combined capacity is 2,200. It is later discovered this should have been reduced to 1,600 because crush barriers installed three years previous did not meet official safety standards.
2.52pm: Police order Gate C – a large exit gate – to be opened to ease the crush outside the ground. Around 2,000 fans enter the ground and head for a tunnel leading directly to pens 3 and 4.
2.59pm: The influx of fans causes severe crushing in pens 3 and 4. Fans begin climbing over fences to escape.
3pm: The match kicks off.
3.05pm: A crush barrier inside pen 3 gives way, causing people to fall on top of each other. Supporters climb border fences.
3.06pm: A policeman runs onto the pitch and orders the referee to stop the match. Supporters try to administrate first aid to the injured.
The aftermath
In his interim report on August 4, 1989, Lord Justice Taylor said the key element of police control at fault was the failure to close off the tunnel leading to pens 3 and 4 once Gate C had been opened.
He also criticised police for their failure to handle the build-up of fans outside the ground properly, and their slow reaction to the unfolding disaster.
Despite this, on August 14, 1990 the director of public prosecutions decided not to bring criminal charges against any individual, group or body on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Inquests in 1991 into the deaths of the victims returned a majority verdict of accidental death, and ruled they were all dead by 3.15pm.
However, many families of the victims disputed this and began to campaign for a fresh inquiry. Anne Williams, the mother of Hillsborough victim Kevin Williams, has called for the government to open a new inquest under section 13 of the Coroner's Act.
She claims Kevin was still alive at 4pm on the day of the disaster, and did not die from traumatic asphyxia.
The families maintain more could have been done to save lives, and that grave mistakes were made in terms of doing so. Of the 96 people who died, only 14 were ever admitted to hospital.
Lies about the Liverpool fans' behaviour were spread in the years that followed, intensified by a splash in the Sun newspaper, headlined THE TRUTH, which blamed them for the tragedy.
As recently as June 2010 the then-culture secretary Jeremy Hunt was forced to apologise after he appeared to suggest hooliganism played a part in the Hillsborough disaster.
Investigations have found violence played no part in the tragedy, and have instead criticised police officers for a "failure of control".
Many families have come to believe there was an organised cover-up involving police and politicians, to avoid criticism. They have long battled for justice, and demanded to see all the documents about what happened.
Until David Cameron apologised today, no one from the government or police has apologised, and no organisation or individual has been sanctioned.
A statement of apology appeared on the Sheffield Wednesday FC website this morning.
In April this year it emerged South Yorkshire police officers reportedly told Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the day after the disaster that "drunken Liverpool fans" outside the football ground had caused it.
According to the prime minister's press secretary at the time, Bernard Ingham, he and Thatcher were given the impression “there were a lot of tanked-up people outside [the stadium]”.
The Guardian reports: “The families of those who died have always believed that this false version of Hillsborough was briefed to Thatcher, and helped form a government stance sympathetic to the police and hostile to the supporters.”
The papers
In October 2011, home secretary Theresa May promised that all government papers – including uncensored cabinet minutes relating to the deaths of the 96 Liverpool fans – would be handed to an independent panel.
Cabinet papers are not usually published in the UK until 30 years after they have been written, but MPs agreed to their disclosure after 140,000 people petitioned MPs to stage a debate demanding the full release of the Hillsborough documents to the panel.
An independent panel of experts, chaired by the Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, has spent 20 months examining 450,000 internal documents relating to the Hillsborough Disaster.
Today, the panel will aim to deliver a definitive narrative into the events of April 15, 1989. Relatives were the first to see the documents.
The Guardian reports: “The city hopes this will be the week that will finally clear the names of the supporters, who were maligned as drunk, ticketless and unruly, a portrayal perpetrated by police and articulated by the Sun newspaper under the headline: ‘The truth’.”
Why they matter
Today is a significant day for the families of the Hillsborough victims for a number of reasons:
Answers: The independent panel is aiming to present a definitive narrative into the events of the disaster. Families hope the truth about what happened on April 15, 1989 will today be revealed.
Verdicts: Many families never received a death certificate for their loved ones because they refused to accept the inquest verdict written on them - accidental death. The Hillsborough Family Support Group hopes there will today be enough evidence for families to go forward to override those inquest verdicts.
Responsibility: Some hope the new documents will prompt an apology, while others hope it will see people involved brought to account. For many the priority is putting to bed the idea that fans were to blame for the tragedy.
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