The United Kingdom, Manchester,  A Boeing 737-236 Crashes Just After Takeoff 55 Killed In Crash  

August 22, 1985 Manchester International Airport. At 0612 hrs G-BGJL, carrying 131 passengers and 6 crew on a charter flight to Corfu, began its take-off from runway 24 at Manchester with the co-pilot handling. About thirty six seconds later, as the airspeed passed 125 knots, the left engine suffered an uncontained failure, which punctured a wing fuel tank access panel. Fuel leaking from the wing ignited and burnt as a large plume of fire trailing directly behind the engine. The crew heard a 'thud', and believing that they had suffered a tyre-burst or bird-strike, abandoned the take-off immediately, intending to clear the runway to the right. They had no indication of fire until 9 seconds later, when the left engine  fire warning occurred.

After an exchange with Air Traffic Control, during which the fire was confirmed, the commander warned his crew of an evacuation from the right side of the aircraft, by making a broadcast over the cabin address system, and brought the aircraft to a halt in the entrance to link Delta. As the aircraft turned off, a wind of 7 knots from 250° carried the fire onto and around the rear fuselage. After the aircraft stopped the hull was penetrated rapidly and smoke, possibly with some flame transients, entered the cabin through the aft right door which was opened shortly before the aircraft came to a halt. Subsequently fire developed within the cabin.

Despite the prompt attendance of the airport fire service, the aircraft was destroyed and 55 persons on board lost their lives. The cause of the accident was an uncontained failure of the left engine, intitiated by a failure of the No 9 combustor can which had been the subject of a repair. A section of the combustor can, which was ejected forcibly from the engine, struck and fractured an underwing fuel tank access panel. The fire which resulted developed catastrophically, primarily because of adverse orientation of the parked aircraft relative to the wind, even though the wind was light.  Major contributory factors were the vulnerability of the wing tank access panels to impact, a lack of any effective provision for fighting major fires inside the aircraft cabin, the vulnerability of the aircraft hull to external fire and the extremely toxic nature of the emissions from the burning interior materials. The major cause of the fatalities was rapid incapacitation due to the inhalation of the dense toxic/irritant smoke atmosphere within the cabin, aggravated by evacuation delays caused by a door malfunction and restricted access to the exits.