Airliner crash lands at Heathrow

[ziggysego]

An international passenger plane has crash landed short of the runway at Heathrow Airport.



All 136 passengers and 16 crew escaped down the Boeing 777's emergency chutes after British Airways flight BA038 from Beijing came down.

Six people have been taken to hospital suffering minor injuries, reports say.

The incident happened as Prime Minister Gordon Brown was due to leave Heathrow for China and India. His flight was delayed because of the incident.

Downing Street said at about 1430 GMT that Gordon Brown had taken off.   On its approach it took the runway too low, just missing the roof of my cab

The south runway is closed while investigators examine the scene - the north runway remains open.

Eyewitness John Rowland said: "The plane's wheels collapsed, doors were flown open.

"On its approach it took the runway too low, just missing the roof of my cab.

"It crashed into the runway, debris was flying everywhere, there was an enormous bang and it skidded sideways."

BA has set up a helpline for anyone concerned about friends or relatives: 0800 3894193

BA said the cabin crew had done an "excellent job" evacuating passengers, and that it would release more information as soon as it was available.

A telephone helpline has been set up for anyone concerned about friends or relatives on 0800 3894193.

Chief executive of BA Willie Walsh said he was "very proud" of the crew.

Fernando Pardo was a passenger on the plane itself. He told the BBC there was "no sign whatsoever of any trouble until we touched the ground".

"It was so quick that you could not even realise what exactly happened. There was no panic at all," Mr Pardo said.

Huge amount of smoke

Another eyewitness, Nick Gray, told BBC News: "We were taxiing along ready to take off and certainly out of the window I could see a plane coming in to land.

"I'm not quite sure if the undercarriage was missing or not, but certainly what we saw was the plane coming down.

"There were some sparks as the undercarriage or the bottom of the plane actually touched the runway - certainly a huge amount of smoke coming up from that.

"It was incredibly efficient the speed that people got off the aircraft.

"There seems to have been regular dousing of foam on the port engine which obviously probably was the hottest one where the plane landed.

"Certainly there is a lot of activity and lots of vehicles with flashing lights all around the plane."

Some flights bound for Heathrow are being diverted to Stansted and Luton Airports.

Sourced BBCi: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7194086.stm

[Minder]

[as the plane prepares to take off]
Hanging Lady: Nervous?
Ted Striker: Yes.
Hanging Lady: First time?
Ted Striker: No, I've been nervous lots of times.

[Hardy]

Excuse me. Excuse me - stewardess?
- Yes, sir?

Well, this is my first time flying with BA. I was just wondering - will there be a bus to take us to the airport when we land?

[mannix]

Usually its ryanair that land miles away from the city they say they are going to, now ba are at it. What next?,  aerlingus will pull out of shannon or something I suppose.

[muppet]

152 very lucky people, thankfully.

No serious clues yet as to what happened. Weather click here
was the usual January fare it appears from below despite an pilot eyewitness mentioning windsheer.

3 PM (20) Jan 17 48 (9) 41 (5) 29.50 (0999) WSW 22 
2 PM (19) Jan 17 48 (9) 41 (5) 29.47 (0998) WSW 18 
1 PM (18) Jan 17 46 ( 41 (5) 29.47 (0998) WSW 20 
Noon (17) Jan 17 46 ( 41 (5) 29.44 (0997) W 20 
11 AM (16) Jan 17 48 (9) 42 (6) 29.38 (0995) WSW 17 light rain showers
10 AM (15) Jan 17 53 (12) 46 ( 29.38 (0995) SW 21 
9 AM (14) Jan 17 55 (13) 48 (9) 29.38 (0995) SW 22

Nothing in the BBC report to help either. BA chief Willie Walsh was a Boeing 737 pilot though and if he is 'very proud' then it suggests he thinks pilot error may not have been a factor.

There are no reports of an emergency being declared that I can see anywhere so whatever happened must have happened very quickly and very close to the ground. Some news reports are suggesting they lost power in both engines which would be an incredible piece of bad luck to happen at the same time and so close to the ground.

In the picture you can see what remains of the left main landing gear where it has punched its way up though the left wing. Must have been quite an impact. It then obviously skidded to a halt at the start of the runway.

They were blessed.

[Puckoon]

So youve just survived a plane crash. Would you complain about a lack of tea and coffee and counselling provided by the BA ground staff? Id have lost the temper with this eejit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7196128.stm

[EC Unique]

My guess would be Pilot error in that he stalled the engines with a bad approach angle. It will be interesting to see what happened, that is if we ever hear the truth..

[Puckoon]

awful.

[Billys Boots]

There used to be a pilot on the board - Ballynure Grousebeater (I think), he might have the gen!

[Croí na hÉireann]

There used to be a pilot on the board - Ballynure Grousebeater (I think), he might have the gen!

That's Aerlick now I believe

[gerry]

Have you heard about the new service that British Airways are offering their business class passengers?

Apparently, they fly you directly to the car park.

[Minder]

Have you heard about the new service that British Airways are offering their business class passengers?

Apparently, they fly you directly to the car park.

Boom boom 

[muppet]

My guess would be Pilot error in that he stalled the engines with a bad approach angle. It will be interesting to see what happened, that is if we ever hear the truth..

'that is if we ever hear the truth..'. That is a great way of saying I can never be proved wrong, I like it.

The only approach angle to Heathrow is 3 degrees on the ILS (instrument landing system). If they deviated even slightly from that ATC would have wanted to know why.  The only other type of approach available at Heathrow is a PAR (Precision Approach Radar which is following ATC instructions all the way), it is not very accurate and would have been in the news by now as every aircraft spotter with a scanner in London would have known.

There are suggestions that both engines failed. This seems incredibile that they both failed at the same and at such a critical phase. While they are almost identical there is very little in the way of systems that contact both the engines of an aircraft. By that I mean there aren't many single events that can effect both engines so drastically. They each run using separate computer systems which are separate from the main aircraft computers.

The only common systems are the pilots, the basic controls (thrust levers, fuel levers etc are in the same part of the cockpit), the fuel system (this can be split but if the fuel is gash or runs out then it doesn't matter), maintenance (rules are that no one engineer services both engines at the same time in case he makes the same mistake twice but in some airlines this is not always followed due to time pressures and poor regulation) and that last I can think of is the atmosphere (volcanic ash famously caused all 4 engines of a BA 747 to flame out once) which can contain engine threats such as flocks of birds but you would expect the pilots to know that they had ingested birds if that happened.

[muppet]

Initial report from the UK Air Accident Investigation Board

Examination of the aircraft systems and engines is ongoing.

Initial indications from the interviews and Flight Recorder analyses show the flight and approach to have progressed normally until the aircraft was established on late finals for Runway 27L. At approximately 600 ft and 2 miles from touch down, the Autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond. Following further demands for increased thrust from the Autothrottle, and subsequently the flight crew moving the throttle levers, the engines similarly failed to respond. The aircraft speed reduced and the aircraft descended onto the grass short of the paved runway surface.(my italics-Muppet)

The investigation is now focussed on more detailed analysis of the Flight Recorder information, collecting further recorded information from various system modules and examining

That report would appear to remove that blame from the pilots. That will be very significant later on because someone will have to shoulder the blame and the easiest scapegoats sit at the pointy end. If there is no blame attached to the pilots then the suspects would include, but not be limited to, British Airways, their maintenance contractors, their fuel company in China, Boeing, Rolls Royce or some birds.   

[Tyrones own]

 I read in a newsletter at work that a lot of these main carriers have been building maintenance hubs
in, then out sourcing a lot of their major overhauls to China, just another angle. Scary stuff...