The co-pilot, Captain Kenneth Rayment, was also a former RAF flight lieutenant and a Second World War flying ace. After joining the RAF in 1940, he was promoted to sergeant in September 1941. He was commissioned as a war substantive pilot officer a year later, and promoted to war substantive flying officer in May 1943. He shot down five German fighters, one Italian plane and a V-1 flying bomb. He was awarded the DFC in July 1943, and promoted to flight lieutenant in September 1943. After leaving the RAF in 1945, he joined BOAC in Cairo, before joining BEA in 1947. He had had experience with Vikings, Dakotas and the Ambassador "Elizabethan" class.