Manchester United, then English champions for two years running and aiming for a third, had just won a place in the European Cup semi-finals, courtesy of a 3-3 draw away to Red Star Belgrade. On the journey back to Manchester, on Thursday February 6th 1958, their plane, a twin-engined BEA Elizabethan airliner, Lord Burghley, touched down at Munich Riem airport to refuel. Then the weather began to deteriorate.
The pilot made two abortive attempts to take-off in the snow; the third attempt was disastrous. As the pilot tried to get the plane airborne, it overshot the end of the runway, clipped a house and crashed.

United players Roger Byrne, Geoff Bent, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Liam Whelan all died in the wreckage. Duncan Edwards fought for his life, but in vain; he died two weeks later.

The other victims were: United's trainer Tom Curry, team coach Bert Whalley and secretary Walter Crickmer; supporter Willie Satinoff; travel agent Mr. B.P. Miklos; journalists Alf Clarke, Don Davies, George Follows, Tom Jackson, Archie Ledbrooke, Henry Rose, Frank Swift, Eric Thompson; and BEA crew Captain K.G. Rayment (copilot) and Mr. W.T. Cable (steward).

Matt Busby, manager and architect of United's success, was given the last rites, but eventually pulled through. United players Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry, though they too survived, never played again thanks to their injuries.

The German Court of Inquiry, reporting eleven years after the event, concluded that snow on the runway was the most probable cause of the crash, and that though the pilot, Captain James Thain, had deviated from normal procedure, those deviations had not actually caused the accident. Suggestions that ice on the plane's wings had contributed were discounted.

The nation mourned, but United carried on as best they could. Two matches were postponed; the crucial league game with leaders Wolves on the following Saturday, and the 5th round FA Cup tie with Sheffield Wednesday the Saturday after that. With Matt Busby still in hospital in Germany, assistant manager Jimmy Murphy took over, and cobbled together a team of Munich survivors, youth team players and emergency transfers for the next game, the rearranged Sheffield Wednesday tie, which took place on Wednesday, 19th February, less than a fortnight after the crash. United ran riot, beating Wednesday (albeit a team propping up the league) 3-0. Two days later, Duncan Edwards died.
United managed to keep a run going in the Cup, getting all the way to Wembley, where Nat Lofthouse and Bolton Wanderers beat them 2-0. In the other competitions, it was a different story, as the team were knocked out of the European Cup by AC Milan in the semi-finals. (Red Star Belgrade, incidentally, had made representation to UEFA that United be declared honorary European champions of 1958. UEFA, perhaps understandably, declined the suggestion, but offered United automatic entry into the following year's competition. The English FA, however, refused to allow United to accept the offer.)

In the league United faded badly, winning only one of their fourteen post-Munich fixtures. Eventually they finished 9th, twenty-one points behind the champions, Wolves. It was 1963 before United won another trophy, with an FA Cup win over Leicester; they had to wait until 1965 for their next championship.