Incredible story of British Airways pilot who was sucked out of plane mid-flight and survived
A pilot who was sucked out of the cockpit while he was 23,000ft in the air miraculously lived to tell the tale.
Against all odds, Captain Tim Lancaster somehow managed to cling onto the British Airways jet for dear life while hanging out of the plane headfirst.
It was a white knuckle ride, that's for sure - and you can get an idea of exactly what he went through while watching this terrifying simulation or this chilling real-life footage.
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What was supposed to be a routine flight from Birmingham, England, to Malaga, Spain, ended up going down in history as one of the most bizarre aviation accidents ever.
British Airways Flight 5390 took to the skies on 10 June 1990, with 81 passengers on board, four cabin crew and two pilots - although they almost landed one person light.
Lancaster - who had 11,050 hours of flight experience before the incident - was working alongside co-pilot Alistair Atchison when disaster struck shortly after take off.
The BAC One-Eleven 528FL had climbed to around 17,300ft and cabin crew were getting ready for meal service as they flew over Didcot, when a loud bang erupted in the cockpit.
It turned out that the left windscreen panel, situated on Lancaster's side of the flight deck, had unexpectedly blown out.
The force alone dragged the captain out of his seat and forced him headfirst out of the gaping hole, while crew members sprang into action and desperately grabbed onto his ankles.
Lancaster's knees were caught on the flight controls - but the entirety of his upper torso was exposed to the elements.
Flight attendant Nigel Ogden courageously held onto Lancaster's legs as he began to slip out of the window, despite risking being dragged out of the opening too.
As Aitchison began an emergency descent, cabin crew member John Heward was forced to rush into the cockpit and get hold of Ogden to help him support Lancaster, who was still hanging out of the plane.
Flight attendant Simon Rogers was then thrown into the mix and took over the task of holding onto the captain - who was feared dead by his colleagues.
They had watched his head repeatedly crash against the side of the fuselage, leaving him covered in blood, while he continued to shift several centimetres further out of the window.
The British Airways flight then made an emergency landing at Southampton Airport after about 20 minutes, where Lancaster's ankles were freed from the flight controls.
Incredibly, the captain only suffered frostbite, bruising, shock, and fractures to his right arm, left thumb, and right wrist.
Similarly, Ogden had frostbite in his face and a dislocated shoulder - while he was also haunted by his memories from the incident in 1990.
The crew member previously told the Sydney Morning Herald: "His legs were jammed forward, disconnecting the autopilot, and the flight door was resting on the controls, sending the plane hurtling down at nearly 650kmh through some of the most congested skies in the world.
"I thought I was going to lose him, but he ended up bent in a U-shape around the windows.
"His face was banging against the window with blood coming out of his nose and the side of his head, his arms were flailing and seemed about 6 feet long."
"Most terrifyingly, his eyes were wide open. I'll never forget that sight as long as I live," Ogden added.
Asked whether he feared death while he was hanging out of the cockpit, Lancaster told reporters: "It did cross my mind. For a moment or two."
In the 2005 documentary Mayday, he also explained: "What I remember most clearly was the fact that I couldn't breathe because I was facing into the airflow."
An investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) later found that bolts belonging to the windshield had been replaced with slightly smaller ones, which proved to be a lot less secure.
Lancaster returned to work after less than five months, but left British Airways in 2003.
He went on to fly planes for EasyJet until 2008, when he retired from commercial piloting - as I'm sure he'd seen more than enough of the skies by that point.
Olivia Burke