[1] Three of the passengers who died were Arvid Lindman, a former Prime Minister of Sweden, Magnus Wegelius, a Finnish athlete, and Juan de la Cierva, the Spanish inventor of the autogyro.

[2][3] The Douglas DC-2 involved in the accident had been delivered to KLM and registered as PH-AKL the previous April.

[4] On the day of the accident Croydon Air Port was shrouded in fog with visibility fluctuating at around 50 m (55 yd); and all aircraft were operating under so-called "QBI" (a Q code denoting that all operations have to be performed under instrument flight rules) conditions.

[5][7] A number of departures by this method had already been made that day by the time the KLM DC-2 took off, including a Swissair DC-2 about 25 minutes beforehand.

[1][2][3] At the time this was the worst aircraft crash in the United Kingdom in terms of the number of fatalities.