Bea: The Definitive Newsreel History 1946-1974 DVD

BEA (British European Airways) was a division of the state owned BOAC formed in 1946 to run the passenger air services to Continental Europe and within the UK that had been operated by the RAF during the Second World War. Most of BEAs immediate post-war operations were out of Northolt using old piston engined Vickers Vikings and DC-3 Dakotas. These were followed by the first turbo-prop airliner the Vickers Viscount then by the Vickers Vanguard the DH Comet 4 and The Hawker Siddeley Trident series. Theres a nostalgic look at flying from Northolt in 1949 before a series... of hard hitting news stories such as The Viking Vigilant with a huge hole in the fuselage caused by a time-bomb detonated over the Channel. In 1953 another Viking hit a mast on its approach to Belfast - there were no survivors. The worst disaster was in 1965 when a BEA Vickers Vanguard made three attempts to land in fog at London Airport - it somersaulted down the runway killing all on board. ITNs Peter Snow gives a graphic description of the crash. Ironically BEA were the pioneers of the Automatic Landing System (Autoland) originally on the Trident Fleet and for this BEA was awarded the Queens Award For Industry. [show more]

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