Rtn Graham Furnival: An error of judgement

Today our member Graham Furnival told us about an incident that took place in 1987 when he was a Detective Chief Inspector, newly appointed as head of a team whose area included Stansted Airport.

A twin-engined Cessna aircraft had taken off on a flight to Birmingham. The pilot immediately contacted the control tower to say that he was having problems with the aeroplane. It then crashed in a field, catching fire and killing the pilot and the five passengers on board.

Once he heard the news Graham knew that as the senior CID officer he had to secure the site as soon as possible. He jumped into his car and drove up the M11 at 120 mph to be there as soon as possible. He stopped by a nearby field, donned his wellington boots and walked across a ploughed field to the crash scene.

He didn’t have to worry about securing the site. The control tower had seen the Cessna come down and alerted the airport fire service. When Graham arrived the fire tenders had already arrived and sprayed everything with foam. The uniformed police had already marked off the area with “bomb tape”. (Graham commented that this was much better than erecting a fence. Journalists would climb over a fence but respect a barrier created with tape.) The senior uniformed officer was responsible for investigating the cause of the accident and Graham was responsible for investigating any evidence of criminal activity.

The bodies were burnt beyond recognition. The airport had a list of those on the aircraft but individual identities had to be established through such things as clothing labels and dental records. DNA profiling had only been introduced the previous year and was not widely available.

Air Accident Branch arrived to investigate and removed the remains of the aircraft, which they carefully rebuilt at Fanborough. This established that the accident had been caused by the failure of a fuel pump in the port engine. There had been no criminality and no pilot error.

Where was the error of judgement? This occurred a few days after the accident when the airport chaplain paid a welfare visit to the CID team. “We’re OK,” Graham told him. “I’ve been to the sites of many sudden deaths in my time and I’ve seen many such scenes.”

After the chaplain left Graham was approached by a member of his staff. “Guv, you may be used to such things but the rest of us aren’t!”