Kegworth air disaster: Service held to remember dead

A small service was held at Kegworth's memorial to victims of the crash

Prayers have been said to commemorate the lives of 47 people killed in one of Britain's worst air disasters.

A Boeing 737, carrying 126 people, crashed on the M1 near Kegworth, in Leicestershire, on 8 January 1989.

Representatives from the village and East Midlands Airport attended a small ceremony at 09:00 GMT.

Reverend Lauretta Wilson, rector of St Andrew's church in the village, said people remained very affected by the crash.

'Silence and prayers'

The plane, which was bound for Belfast, developed a problem in its left engine shortly after it took off from Heathrow, but the pilots mistakenly believed the fault was in the right engine.

They shut down the wrong engine leading to the crash just yards from the runway of East Midlands Airport where it was attempting an emergency landing.

Remarkably nobody on the motorway was hurt, but 74 people on the plane were injured.

The British Midland flight crashed on the M1 embankment, missing every car on the carriageway

Ahead of the service Rev Wilson said: "We will be saying prayers at the memorial at the Whatton Road cemetery, as we do every year.

"We hold bigger services to mark the major anniversaries, but we like to mark every anniversary with silence and prayers.

"There are people in the village who are still very affected by what happened."

A spokesperson for East Midlands Airport said representatives would be attending the small service and presenting a wreath.