A British Airways Boeing 777 crashed-landed at London Heathrow Airport (LHA) yesterday, injuring 18 passengers and sending one person to hospital for overnight treatment. By all accounts, the passengers and crew are lucky to be alive following a loss of engine power preceded by a hard thundering smash into the earth which destroyed sections of the plane's under side - including landing wheels.
According to reports, BA Flight 38 was inbound from Beijing with 136 passengers and 16 crew on board when it apparently lost power, hit the ground just short of the runway across from Terminal 4, and approximately 200m from Hatton Cross Underground Station, before skidding across the grass and coming to a halt at the beginning of the touchdown runway.
Had the disabled plane crashed some 30 seconds earlier, the potential loss of life for passengers aboard the aircraft and passengers making their way to and from the tube station would have been catastrophic. Hatton Cross station also has a bus stop above ground that transfers passengers to British Airways employee lots, Heathrow's main bus station, and local transit busses to the London borough of Hounslow. Underground, passengers would have either just left the Heathrow Terminals 1-2-3 stop -- the first stop on the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters -- or they would be on their way to Heathrow Terminal 4.
The pilots have been praised by British authorities for maintaining their professionalism during the flight once they realised the plane would struggle to land. According to the report, some passengers on board the ailing aircraft stated that the plane felt as though it were on take-off rather than approach, as the Boeing engines were revved up, not down as is typical on final approach to landing.
I've flown in and out of Heathrow Terminals 1-2-3-4 on numerous occasions during the past 12 months, and twice on British Airways. During my last flight out, in November from LHR to Palma, I stated to my travel mate, who hadn't flown in nearly two years, that there hadn't been a crash in Europe for quite some time, and pointed out that the recent spate of crashes had taken place in Russia and third-world countries using antiquated equipment and outdated planes. I assured her there was little risk of crashing in Europe, and my word held true for a few weeks until an SAS plane had wheel trouble and had to crash land in Sweden the following month.
Article comments
1 - Dr Dreadful
From the captain's account it appears that, for whatever reason, the plane suddenly and completely lost power - engines, avionics, everything. He was effectively left in charge of what was now a flying brick.
It's a testament to the skill and coolheadedness of the flight crew - particularly the copilot, who was apparently the one who guided the 777 in - that they not only persuaded the plane to stay in the air long enough to reach the airport perimeter but actually kept it on the approach vector.
As far as personal experience of such things go - none, except for some truly horrendous turbulence on board an Air Pacific 747 on the descent into Sydney from Nadi. I've never heard passengers actually scream before - even on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to LaGuardia a few years back when they announced that the inflight movie would be Maid in Manhattan.
2 - STM
They only just made it too, Doc ... a cabbie said it seemed like the wheels of the jet almost touched the roof of his car, and it barely made it over the perimeter fence.
But unlike many flights at Heathrow, the upside was that it was on time and no one lost their bags.
On a serious note: The latest theory is that fuel contamination might have been to blame. If so, considering it was fuelled up in Beijing, that might be a major issue with the olympics coming up, especially if someone was "skimming" a bit off the top to make an extra quid. It may not be the reason, but is one of the possible causes being looked at.
The word this morning: that the fuel contaminant froze at altitude after take-off, but then melted at lower altitude and on approach, with fuel running low, entered the jet's propulsion system.
Bird-strike is apparently ruled out as no birds were in the vicinity, and it usually only affects one engine, and electrical failure seems increasingly unlikely.
The black box, however, will doubtless reveal all.
This is another reason why passengers should fly with established airlines like BA ... the pilots know what they are doing.
Some years ago, if memory serves me correctly, a similar thing happened on a BA flight on the last leg of a long flight from London to Sydney.
The jet, a fully loaded 747, flew through a cloud of ash blown sky-high by an erupting Indonesian volcano, and the pilots hadn't been warned of the danger.
All four engines flamed out, one after the other, so the aircraft was gliding at 30,000 ft over the Indian ocean with no power.
The crew, from memory, just calmly tried to restart the engines as the 747 glided like a brick and headed towards the sea, at night - extremely dangerous conditions for a crash landing.
Luckily, at about 10,000 ft, thanks to the efforts of the crew, the engines started up again and they continued on the way to Sydney.
I remember thinking at the time that it was good advertisement for BA and the other long-established airlines with good safety records, and so is this.
Keeping a cool head in a crisis is what we hope from these guys, especially when so many accidents you hear of, especially in the third world, are often down to pilot error.
3 - Dr Dreadful
Your recollections of the BA 747/volcano incident are by and large correct, Stan, except that the plane did make an emergency landing in Jakarta before being given a clean bill of health and continuing on to Sydney.
The pilots were baffled as to why the engines would fail at one altitude but work at another, until an engineer who came to look at the plane in Jakarta told them about the volcano, whereupon the penny dropped.
There's a good book about the incident called All Four Engines Have Failed, written by one of the passengers. It may be out of print now - I remember we had a fairly tired and tatty copy in the library I worked at about ten years ago.
British Airways is certainly one of my top airlines, and not just because of this sort of thing. Although on balance, based on my extensive experience of the London-San Francisco route, Virgin Atlantic's service just, ever so slightly, has the edge.
4 - EngineAnalyst
A couple of points: Boeing don't make engines, they make planes. Rolls-Royce and GE are the triple seven engine manufacturers.
Also, somebody says the engines wouldn't restart until 10,000ft after being contaminated with ash, thanks to the efforts of the crew, but even fully functioning engines can't be relit until under this altitude. This is stated in the manuals so the crew should have known it. Unfortunately, most crew use "cheat sheets" to pass their regular check ups and so aren't as fully preapared for real incidents as they should be.
5 - Dr Dreadful
EngineAnalyst, I don't think anybody suggested that the Heathrow crash-landing was the fault of Boeing.
Also, the crew of the 747 discussed above were not aware that there was an erupting volcano in the vicinity. They did know that descending below 10,000 feet would be their best bet at restarting the engines. What baffled them was why they'd all conked out in the first place.
6 - Douglas Mays
EngineAnalyst,
Thank you for pointing out that the engines are not made by Boeing. Rolls Royce, GE, Pratt&Whitney, etc. do that for the aircraft industry.
Those Boeing guys make the plane survivable for things like engine failure...