Residents recall narrow escape in 1994 plane crash

A few days before Christmas in 1994, 22-year-old Clel Sneddon was standing in his parents' kitchen when the lights suddenly went off and chaos erupted outside.

"It was bedlam. It was like coming out on to a Hollywood film set - people just running around screaming and shouting," Mr Sneddon recalls.

A Boeing 737 had crashed in Willenhall, a residential area on the edge of Coventry, killing all five people on board and narrowly missing houses as it went down in woodland.

The crash, a vivid event in many residents' memories, is being revisited as part of the BBC's Secret Coventry series.

The Air Algerie aircraft had been leased by a company called Phoenix Aviation to export live animals from the UK to airports in France and the Netherlands, according to a government investigation report written after the crash.

It was flying through fog as it made its descent into Coventry Airport and hit an electricity pylon just before 10:00 GMT, causing the power cut that made Mr Sneddon's parents' house darken.

It passed over Willenhall's residential streets as it descended, before crashing in woods that run alongside a street called Middle Ride and bursting into flames.

"We heard these mad revving noises," recalls Mr Sneddon, who had dropped into his parents' house on Field March, just off Middle Ride, that morning to pick up a last-minute Christmas shopping list.

"I remember one of the neighbours shouting, 'There's a plane crash!' And I thought, that can't be right."

He added residents were shocked when they ran outside and saw an aircraft on fire, because "you knew there were people dying [inside] and there was nothing you could do".

Syd Farley, who was an assistant divisional officer for West Midlands Fire Service at the time, was put in charge of firefighters' response at the scene and had to write the service's official report afterwards.

Mr Farley, now 84, remembers he found the aircraft on fire and broken into "five or six pieces" when he arrived.

He also found many members of the public "in various states of shock".

Three crew members and two passengers on board were killed in the crash.

The government's investigation report, published in 1996, concluded the crew had allowed the plane to descend below the usual minimum height for its approach to Coventry Airport.

The report, written by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, noted the foggy weather and also said the crew's performance was "impaired by the effects of tiredness" as they had completed over 10 hours of flight duty through the night.

On the crash's 10th anniversary, Willenhall residents set up a brass plaque on the edge of the woods in memory of those who died.

Some believe the pilot crashed in woodland to avoid coming down on their residential area.

The plaque's inscription says: "For the heroic crew of five, who gave their lives while saving ours."

The government report states the plane's wingtip struck just one of Willenhall's terraced houses as it descended. Falling debris also caused minor damage to other houses that it passed over.

"We always say, to this day, how lucky we were - we really did escape with our lives," Mr Sneddon says.

"At the time they [said] it was a Christmas miracle."

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