Manchester United – of all teams – was involved in a scary mid-air incident Tuesday.
It happened in Germany – of all places.
The globally iconic club was en route to European competition – of all things.
The facts, as reported by various outlets across the continent: A team charter was forced to abort its Tuesday evening landing at Cologne’s Konrad Adenauer Airport in Germany only 400 meters above the runway.
Reports said another plane was on the runway as the club attempted to touch down ahead of its Champions League match on Wednesday at Bayer Leverkusen in Germany’s Rhine region.
Pilots on the plane abandoned the landing, circled the ground and then touched down successfully 10 minutes later without further incident. Still, some of players seemed unnerved; here was Rio Ferdinand’s quick Twitter take:
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The eeriness of it (as fans of the world-famous club know all too well) is about an infamous bit of awful history: In February of 1958, a British European Airways flight crashed on a Munich runway while returning to England from a European Cup contest. A total of 23 people died (out of 44 on board), including players, staff and journalists.
It remains one of the most notorious air disasters in the history of world sports, commemorated thoroughly by the club, including with the Munich clock (pictured above) that still resides at Old Trafford.