London Airport
At 6.39 pm on the evening of the accident, a Vickers VC.1 Viking twin-engined airliner of BEA (registered G-AHPN and named "Lord St Vincent") took off from Le Bourget Airport in Paris on a scheduled flight to Northolt airport, London with a crew of four and 26 passengers. A weather forecast obtained before the flight took off had warned of poor visibility, and about 45 minutes after departure as the aircraft neared London, British air traffic control (ATC) informed the pilot that fog had reduced the visibility at Northolt to . On receiving this information, the pilot announced that he would attempt to land at London Airport instead. Although visibility at London Airport was only , it had the facilities for a Ground-controlled approach (GCA, i.e. a "talkdown" by radar operators). The pilot told ATC that if he could not safely land at London Airport, he would divert to Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire or Manston Airport in Kent.