By 1993, Emmerdale was into its third decade on the air and December 1993 saw a major turning point in the show's history, when an episode featured a plane crashing into the village of Beckindale, killing four main characters,[7][1] giving Emmerdale its highest-ever audience of 18 million[7] and marked its "graduation" into a major prime time soap opera.[4] The plane crash "allowed the writers to get rid of much dead wood, and reinvent the soap virtually from scratch,"[10] which included survivors changing the village name from "Beckindale" to "Emmerdale".[7] Since the plane crash, Emmerdale has had increasingly dramatic storylines and glamorous characters.[7] In 1994, former Coronation Street producer Mervyn Watson was hired to inject more humour into the show.[3] New long-term characters, such as the Windsor and Dingle families, were also introduced in the 1990s. The Tates became the soap's leading family during the decade.[4]