Emmerdale plane crash

The Emmerdale Plane Crash, also known as the Beckindale Air Disaster, was a storyline for British soap opera Emmerdale. It occurred on 30 December 1993, and gave Emmerdale its highest-ever viewing figures of 18 million.

Emmerdale Farm was originally devised as similar in concept to the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers, focusing on the farm life of the Sugden family. Originally a low profile, rural drama broadcast in the daytime, efforts were made by Yorkshire Television to transform the show into a more dramatised serial along the lines of the ITV network's main soap Coronation Street, beginning in 1989 when the show's focus moved to the nearby village of Beckindale and 'Farm' was dropped from the title accordingly. Phil Redmond, creator of Channel 4 soap Brookside was brought in to develop ideas and advise on storylines.

The plane crash was the culmination of these efforts and the end of the show's transformation from a minor daytime rural drama into one of the biggest soaps in the UK, on an equal footing with the likes of the BBC's EastEnders and the aforementioned Coronation Street.

Beckindale is partly demolished, and four villagers are killed, when a plane crashes into the village. The four victims of the plane crash were Mark Hughes (who had been in the show since 1988), Elizabeth Pollard (who had joined in 1990), Archie Brooks (who joined in 1983) and Leonard Kempinski (who had only joined the previous year).

The first scene of the plane crash was when Frank Tate was looking at his wife Kim’s stables when suddenly a ball of fire hits the stables. Nick Bates and Archie Brooks were walking home when they were blinded by some fluid, and Archie was engulfed in flames. His body was never recovered and suspicion remains if he actually died, nevertheless Archie is declared dead.

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