LONDON, Dec 11 - Bobby Charlton, breaking almost half-a-century of silence about the 1958 Munich air crash, says the disaster still haunts him every day of his life.

Charlton, now 69, was 20 at the time of the disaster on February 6 1958 that cost the lives of 23 people including eight of his Manchester United team mates.

He told The Times in an interview published on Monday that memories of the crash, which he survived "with just a bang on the head" always haunt him.

"You know, you feel a bit guilty. I do feel guilty even now. I think about it every day of my life," said the attack-minded midfielder, who played 106 times for England and is still the country's all-time record international scorer with 49 goals.

Charlton, who says that he will never be able to speak about some of the scenes of death and devastation that he witnessed, describes in detail the moments leading up to the disaster.

United's twin-engined Elizabethan plane was attempting to take off from a snowy and slushy Munich airport for the third time after two aborted attempts following a re-fuelling stop on their way back from a European Cup tie in Belgrade.

"It was taking so long to get off the ground and I suddenly realised that everyone felt the same. Then it went really quiet and as I looked out the window we hit a fence.

"We knocked it flat and then everyone knew this was really serious."

Charlton, knocked unconscious as the plane began to break apart, was thrown some distance from the wreckage and passed out for 10 to 15 minutes before being rescued by his team mate Harry Gregg and taken to hospital.

He says the thought he survived when so many of his friends died still haunts him.

"I asked first about the people who were really quite personal to me -- Tommy Taylor, David Pegg, Eddie Colman. They were close, really close.

"I spent so much time with them. Tommy and David and me were in digs in the same area and we all had mining backgrounds.

"We were all such friends, so when the German lad (in hospital) read out they were all dead I couldn't understand how I could have been 50 yards away from the aeroplane, still strapped in my seat, without suffering anything but a bang on my head which needed a few stitches.

"How could that be? How could I feel myself all over and find out that I was all right, completely whole and my pals were dead. I think about this fact every day of my life.

"I didn't think I was lucky or anything like that. What it was, was just one basic question: how can it be that I'm all right and all these other lads have gone?

"And, you know, you feel a bit guilty. I do feel guilty even now."

Charlton was fit enough to play again three weeks after the crash, returning for an FA Cup sixth round match against West Bromwich Albion. United went on to reach the FA Cup final, where they lost 2-0 to Bolton Wanderers.

"By the time we got to Wembley, I think it was incidental whether we won the final ... the real point was that we (Manchester United) had survived."

Charlton, who was knighted in 1994, went on to become one of the greatest footballers in the world. He won the World Cup with England in 1966 when he was named European Footballer of the Year, and also won the European Cup with Manchester United in 1968.