The Plane Crash (New Year: 1993/1994)

The plot line of a plane crashing in the village of Beckindale occurred on 30 December 1993. The crash killed four regular characters and led to the onscreen renaming of Beckindale to Emmerdale; the village name change was a tribute to the Sugden family, whose farm was known as Emmerdale Farm. The story garnered significant press and audience attention, giving Emmerdale its highest ever viewing figures of 16 million. The plot line attracted controversy due to the similarity with the real-life bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988, and was aired near to the time of the fifth anniversary of that disaster.

The first scene of the plane crash was when Frank Tate (Norman Bowler) was looking at his wife's Kim Tate's (Claire King) stables, when suddenly a ball of fire hits them. Nick Bates (Cy Chadwick) and Archie Brooks (Tony Pitts) were walking home when they are blinded by aviation fuel, and Archie is engulfed in flames. This was the last time that Archie appeared onscreen; however, his body was never recovered in the series.

The Woolpack windows explode in and Joe Sugden (Frazer Hines) crashes his car when a wing of the plane collides with the car. His mother Annie Sugden (Sheila Mercier) and her husband Leonard Kempinski (Bernard Archard) were also in the car. Joe suffered a broken leg and Annie remained in a coma for several months. However, Leonard dies. He and Annie had only been married for two months. Up at the stables, Kim had to be restrained from trying to retrieve her horses, listening helplessly as her horses screamed for help. People in the Woolpack began to regain consciousness. Eric Pollard (Chris Chittell) started wandering around looking for his wife, Elizabeth Pollard (Kate Dove). As the hours passed, he started to draw attention as many people became suspicious of his behaviour. Elizabeth is eventually found dead and is declared a victim of the plane crash. However, many people, on and off-screen, believe Eric killed Elizabeth as she was on her way to the police to report him for forging cheques. Outside, Alan Turner (Richard Thorp) picks up a plane ticket with the name Kurshkov on it, he notices more wreckage in the field together with Angharad and Bernard McAllister (Brendan Price) and it becomes more clear what has happened. The local school is used as a base. Mark Hughes' (Craig McKay) arm can be seen sticking out of some rubble. At the school, Jack Sugden (Clive Hornby) notices Mark's watch amongst the personal belongings that have been found, it is the one that Annie gave him at Christmas. Jack has the unfortunate task of identifying his body. Frank's son Chris Tate (Peter Amory) is discovered in the wine bar but his legs are trapped under heavy rubble. When he is retrieved from the rubble, he is airlifted to hospital. Chris would later learn that he has lost the use of his legs. As Annie was being cut out of the car which Joe had crashed a news bulletin was being heard on the radio about a passenger jet had crashed on the Yorkshire village of Beckindale and it was on its way to Canada from eastern Europe and all 250 passengers and crew had believed to have been killed. We then saw Joe resting on the back of the ambulance when a paramedic told him that they were unable to save Leonard but Annie was still alive.

Many buildings in the village were left in ruins as a result of the plane crash. Excluding the four dead characters, many other bodies were found all over the village.

The Emmerdale storyline also made a brief crossover into Brookside, as the Liverpool Echo (a real newspaper based in Liverpool), which was being read by one of the characters in Brookside, had a front-page story featuring the crash in Emmerdale.