Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2015 19:11:00 GMT 1
Viscount’s recent article about the 707 at Liverpool reminded me of another 707 ‘event’; no doubt the title sounds a bit odd, but bear with me. I was reminded of this because I was in Southall recently.
If you buy a ticket on the world’s most expensive pounds-per-mile train journey, aka the Heathrow Express and you happen to sit on the right hand side of the train on the way to Heathrow, you will pass a large gasholder just after Southall station. On the top of the gasholder are the letters LH and an arrow. What most people don’t realise is that there is some significance in this.
Back in 1960, a PanAm 707 (N725PA) inbound from New York began an approach to Heathrow, but seeing what they thought was the main runway slightly off to their right and without the benefit of ILS in those days, the crew began to descend and landed on Northolt’s only runway at the 26 end. There was some consternation in the Heathrow tower when the aircraft didn’t actually appear on the runway and initially they thought it might have crashed. At about the same time, Heathrow got a call from Northolt asking what a PanAm 707 was doing on the runway! Bear in mind that at that time Northolt was the home of the VIP squadron and was used by visiting heads of state, so security was normally very tight. In fact it was effectively closed to civilian traffic for this reason.
There was much head-scratching all round, because the runway at Northolt was (and still is) only 5,500 feet long and on landing the PanAm 707 had finally stopped only 100 yards from the end of the runway. A decision was taken to remove anything that was removable from the aircraft, so that it was as light as possible for its short ferry flight to Heathrow. So, out came the seats and the carpets, most of the remaining fuel was offloaded, with just enough to cover the flight to Heathrow (plus reserves) remaining on board. Rumour has it (though I have never seen it confirmed officially), that the same crew were used for the ferry flight, on the basis the ‘You put it in there, you get it out!’
As a precaution, the A 40, which runs past the bottom of the easterly end of the runway, was closed to traffic until the 707 had taken off, but in fact the aircraft was airborne very quickly, as the photograph in this link shows:
www.abpic.co.uk/popup.php?q=1001607
Surprisingly, there was very little in terms of an investigation into what had happened, and then, in 1964, the same thing almost happened again. This time a Lufthansa 707 found itself on finals to Northolt, before it was alerted by Heathrow ATC, who were watching it on radar. But this was not the last incident. Just a few days later, a Spanish Air Force C-54 which was bound for Northolt, almost landed at Hendon.
This time an inquiry was launched, not least because even pilots familiar with Heathrow were saying that having two gasholders of very similar proportions on the approach to both airports was causing confusion. Among the ideas put forward was to paint them in different colours, or to paint warning signs on the threshold of 26 at Northolt. At this time Northolt did not have an ILS system and it was suggested to the MoD that the expense of fitting one would be justified if it prevented a potential disaster. In the end it was decided to paint letters at the top of the gasholders. NH was painted on the Harrow gasholder and LH was painted on the Southall gasholder. However, after a while it was considered that the two could easily be confused simply from a glance and the Harrow gasholder was changed to NO. The Harrow gasholder was demolished some years ago and is now, surprise, surprise, a retail park.
In the diagram below, the Southall gasholder is on the left and the Harrow one on the right.
And so the Southall one remains to this day, complete with its markings, which are apparently renewed from time to time owing to weather damage. Just how much notice is taken of it in these days of automated landing systems is, of course anyone’s guess, as is the score of how many mistaken approaches to Northolt have been avoided. Incidentally, there are many who think the letters are actually LHR. This is incorrect - they are simply LH, as the photo clearly shows.