Flight Safety Foundation Heroism Award

In 1971, Barbara Jane Harrison was posthumously honoured with the Flight Safety Foundation Heroism Award, an international civil‑aviation distinction recognizing individuals whose actions significantly enhance passenger safety. The award cited Harrison’s conduct during the BOAC Flight 712 emergency at Heathrow on 8 April 1968, where she remained at her station to assist passengers despite life‑threatening fire and smoke.

Although the exact presentation date is not clearly documented, the 1971 recognition positioned Harrison’s story within global professional discourse on airline safety and cabin‑crew responsibility. It signalled that her bravery was not only of national symbolic importance but also of practical relevance to the international aviation community.

For women in aviation, this posthumous award reinforced the idea that cabin crew—often predominantly female—play a central role in emergency management and can be key agents in saving lives. At a time when flight attendants were frequently stereotyped in popular culture, the Flight Safety Foundation’s decision to honour Harrison helped shift perceptions toward seeing them as trained safety professionals.

In the wider history of air transport, the award contributes to the legacy of Flight 712 by embedding lessons from the tragedy into ongoing safety culture. Harrison’s inclusion among Heroism Award recipients ensures that her actions remain part of the narrative examined by safety experts, regulators and airlines seeking to improve evacuation procedures and crew training, thereby extending the impact of her courage far beyond the circumstances of a single flight.