Leeds United star recalls horror of ‘looking at engine on fire’ seconds before plane crash | Football | Sport

Leeds legend Lee Bowyer has recounted the “madness” of his terrifying plane crash ordeal with team-mates in 1998. The Whites were heading back up north following a Premier League fixture at West Ham when catastrophe struck moments after take-off. A star-studded Leeds squad featuring the likes of Harry Kewell, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Alfie Haaland (father of Erling) and other players were all on board for the journey.

But it rapidly became clear the aircraft wouldn’t be making it to its intended destination after one of the engines caught fire, leaving Bowyer convinced he “was going to die.” Speaking on The Managers podcast with Mick McCarthy and Tony Pulis, he recalled: “We’re in the plane, [manager] George [Graham] says, ‘You can’t stay down, you’ve gotta go back. You’re in tomorrow.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay.’ So we’re on the plane, one of them little ones you would’ve been on, 50-seater or whatever, little propeller things, and we’re at Stansted. So obviously it’s dark because it’s been a Monday night game, we’re driving along, take-off, climbing…then all of a sudden, you hear, Bang!’ This big, massive bang.

“I’ve got Rod Wallace in front of me, who’s on the wing door, and obviously that’s where the engine is. So I’m literally sitting here, [and] I’m looking at this thing on fire. This engine on fire. It’s probably 30 yards away from me.”

Throughout Bowyer’s harrowing account of his brush with death, Pulis made little attempt to suppress his amusement. Despite McCarthy insisting he “didn’t think we should be laughing,” Bowyer remained remarkably good-humoured about the ordeal.

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“You have to laugh, because I’m still sitting here,” he went on. “I laugh about it. So we’re still climbing and the thing’s on fire. Everyone stands up, shouting at the top of their voices, ‘Take it down! Take it down!’ It’s just gone AWOL on the plane.

“Then big Robert Molenaar, he stands up and says, ‘Everyone sit down! Calm down!’ So everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, okay.’ And then there’s smoke coming in now, filling up the plane with smoke, thing’s on fire, and then all of a sudden we start going down.

“But you’re constantly watching and thinking, ‘Right it’s gonna blow.’ Because you watch the movies, they blow up, and then that’s it, it’s over. But that’s the movies, and that’s what’s in my head. So now I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, that’s it. I’m gonna die.’

“And then we end up crash landing. But the front wheel, because we came down too steep, the front wheel breaks, so we go into the dirt. You can feel it bouncing, bouncing. So then now I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, we’re buried! We’re buried under the dirt!’ And the thing’s still on fire!”

With smoke still filling the aircraft and blocking visibility, Bowyer described the scene as a “free-for-all” as passengers scrambled to get out. There was also a moment of sheer panic for then-chairman Peter Ridsdale, who sprinted from the front of the aircraft to reach his son, who was seated at the rear.

Assistant coach David O’Leary managed to force an exit door open and arrived at training the following day with his arm “bandaged like a superhero,” having clearly injured himself in the process. Bowyer also remembered how one of the directors, who was “a big lad,” as he put it, wouldn’t jump from the aircraft until a player “booted him off” as a final measure.

McCarthy observed how “lucky doesn’t do it justice” after a firefighter informed passengers the aircraft “would have blown” if the blaze had continued for another minute. Bowyer remained at Leeds for a further five years before moving on to represent West Ham, Newcastle, Birmingham and Ipswich Town, while also earning a single England cap in 2002.