On 25 December 1954, a British Overseas Airways Corporation Boeing 377 Stratocruiser crashed on landing at Prestwick Airport, Scotland; 28 of the 36 on board were killed.

Due to the bad weather it was decided to fly directly to Prestwick and the flight was delayed while it waited for a Manchester passenger to be brought to London.

[4][5] On 5 January it was reported that only 300 diamonds had been found and further searches were to be carried out which included digging up the soil around the crash site.

[8] The public inquiry opened at Ayr on 28 March 1955 with questions about the operation of the air brake switch and any possible effect a failure may have caused.

[10] The inquiry reported on 20 July that the accident was caused by an error of judgement by the pilot and contributed to by the First Officer not turning on the landing lights.