The World's First Jet Airliner

In July 1949, the British-built de Havilland Comet took off for the first time to become the world's first jet-propelled passenger plane. But a flaw in its construction would end up costing lives and leaving crash investigators baffled. Mike Ramsden was an apprentice aeronautical engineer who worked on the jetliner.

(Photo: Mike Ramsden (right) in 1955 with a second generation Comet at the de Havilland airfield at Hatfield, England)