On Monday, April 8, 1968, flight attendant Barbara Jane Harrison put on her uniform and made her way to London's Heathrow Airport to join 10 other cabin crew members operating Flight 712 to Sydney, Australia. Little did she know that in just a few hours, she would go down as one of the bravest women in aviation history. All seemed normal as the 116 passengers boarded the Boeing 707, but just a few seconds after the wheels left the tarmac, disaster struck. A loud bang unexpectedly shook the aircraft. Two minutes after takeoff, the pilot requested an immediate return to Heathrow. It appeared that a fire had started in engine No. 2, but it was much worse. Suddenly, the engulfed engine broke away and fell to the ground and the windows at the rear of the plane began to melt from the intense heat. Just 3 minutes 32 seconds after takeoff, Flight 712 was back on the ground, flames licking the fuselage. The column of smoke rising from the plane could be seen 10 miles away. At the front, passengers began to escape down the emergency slides, but the port slide caught fire before it could be used. Harrison quickly realized that the twisted slide was now their only means of escape. After ushering 22 passengers down the slide, she was just about to leave when she turned back, disappearing into the burning fuselage. It’s believed that she went to try to save an 8-year-old girl and an elderly passenger who were having difficulty escaping on their own. Barbara Harrison never made it off the aircraft. Her body was found near other passengers seated in one of the last rows. A month away from her 23rd birthday, Harrison sacrificed her life to save countless others that fateful afternoon. In 1971, she was posthumously awarded the Flight Safety Foundation Heroism Award.
