Official Radar/ ATC Release of British Airways 777 Crash, BA038, Jan 2008

[Foxx1981]

Seeing those emergency vehicles come so fast makes me really happy

[airplanes66]

in this situation just saying mayday mayday speedbird speed bird would probably bew enogh provided it was the only ba plane close to the ground the controller can also probably see the plane from the tower

[minitrundle]

Wow, Loads of emergency services responding,

Fantastic, fast reactions from Heathrow Tower!

[w3cvw]

Jesus, i just cried my eyes out hearing that, and im a 34 year old man!

[1ScouserNProud1]

@w3cvw Really? If so, sort your life out

[Guydabest]

Great video, thanks.

What program is this?

[crazyc2004]

I remember seeing this on the news! Amazing flying by the pilot, tried to glide the plane down with no power at all. He made it over the chain link fence into the airfield boundary by about a metre. Had he crashed 30 feet further back ,he would gave landed on the motorway!

[ak16611]

can anyone tell me whos to balme for this please

im talking about people like Director operation and stuff like that and why

[Guydabest]

@ak16611 There was a fuel blockage where the fuel line temperature was not high enough so part of the fuel froze, blocking the pipe, so the engines had no fuel and failed to respond.

[cheesemaster1000]

@ak16611 no one was to blame, it was a mechanical failure. Ice built up in the fuel line which then choked off the supply of fuel to the engines.

[raymondrayban]

CAN ANYONE in plane english tell me what is WHAT! WERE is the runway for the 777 to land on ! i see black , green and grey and yellow moving objects that look a bit like planes ! CAN U HELP! ps as simple as possible and to someone WHO HASNT A CLUE WHAT HES LOOKING AT! i dont UNDERSTAND WHAT IM LOOKING AT!

[forces077]

@raymondrayban you are looking at a birds eye overview of London Heathrow airport, you wil see toward the beginning a small white object moving towards the black long runway from the right, it then lands short and rests on the grass (green area) you then see small yellow dots moving on the taxiway towards the plane- these are emergancy vehicles, all the yellow dots are planes sitting at the gates while the gray indicates the buildings away from the airport

[krabby4000]

what went wrong? 

[forces077]

@krabby4000 the engines failed to respond on short final after each of the air inlets had become iced over during adverse weather conditions at 36000 feet and previous to that shortly after departure from beijing

[ralstonjack]

The callsign Speedbird 95 is usually given to a BA aircraft that has called a mayday or is in distress, hence the sudden change to 95....

[callum5150]

@ralstonjack

Garbage.

[cheesemaster1000]

@ralstonjack No, no it isn't. BAW 095 is a flight from London Heathrow - Montreal. In the heat of the moment the Captain must have forgotten his callsign, which is actually quite a common occurrence for pilots.

[ralstonjack]

@cheesemaster1000 apologies, very professional job done by the TWR ATCO and co-ordination sounded superb. I'm about to book my NATS Stage 1

[cheesemaster1000]

@ralstonjack Don't worry, good luck in your test!

[Joshilini]

The captain did say clearly, "mayday mayday speedbird speedbird". That's important enough to grab the controller's attention. Callsign wasn't that important in this case.

The crew handled this crash superbly and Peter Burkill's book is a fantastic read.

[BNEHKG9]

Captain Burkill - you are a hero - such professionalism...the controller is so calm also - very impressive.

[wanaplayrough]

very fast, and very effiecent controllers

[surreyboy84]

Why do they say Speedbird 95 in the Mayday call when their call sign is Speedbird 38?

[LockerzUnlocked]

there were more important things to get right at that moment

[surreyboy84]

@LockerzUnlocked I bought Peter Burkill's book a while ago "Thirty Seconds to Impact." In it he says that Speedbird 95 would have been his next flight and he just got mixed up in the heat of the moment. He also says that Speedbird 95 is not the call sign they use in the simulator. Thanks to all of those who responded to my original comment...right and wrong! :-) I definately recommend the book.

[Arrows2100]

@surreyboy84 Speedbird 95 is/was the callsign that BAW use in their emergency simulator training I have been told. Thats why when it was all going to shit the pilot assosiated the "Mayday" with the callsign they used every other time they used the word.. Amazing huh?

[surreyboy84]

@Arrows2100 Cheers. A sensible and informative reply for once!

[Amtiskau]

@surreyboy84 The pilot has a blog on which he has stated: "A week later when I was listening to the CVR I was surprised to hear myself say "Speedbird, Speedbird, 95, 95". It baffled me for a bit and then realised that "95" was the flight number of what would have been my next trip."

I don't think Youtube allows me to post links but if you search on Google for "Peter Burkill" and go to "Chapter 2" of his blog you will find the answer.

[hughe387]

@surreyboy84 Because that is the callsign used during simulator training. Their instinct was to revert to what happened during training.

[hidri86]

@surreyboy84 the 38 no is the flight no but when it comes to show what aircraft is calling he need to tell the airgraft reg which u say the last 2 or 3 digits. some airlines use laters as a reg. but british airways uses no.

[spitfir3ace]

@surreyboy84 95 is the callsign they use in the sim afaik

[joeshorney1]

@surreyboy84 It's interesting. There are two reasons:

1) The captain operating this sector (the PNF, therefore the person in charge of radio communications) was operating as BAW 095 on his previous trip; and

2) BA train for 'mayday' calls -they always used the BAW 095 as the simulated flight.

In light of the crash, BA now use random flight numbers during training -it was thought that the pilot reverted to his training and actually remembered the flight number he had been tested on.

[digitalis112]

@surreyboy84 This is the training callsign they used in the simulators during emergency procedure training...in the heat of the moment they just reverted to it.

[jgs737]

@surreyboy84 Apparently the last callsign the captain used in the sim (and hence the last callsign he appended "Mayday" to) was Speedbird 95 - if it's true then it's interesting to see how the human mind reverts in such situations

[jordangmagic]

@surreyboy84 Speedbird 95 was meant to be the next flight he was going to make a few hours later but he got the mixed up - fair play, I would have screamed over the frequency.

[lennyboy1993]

@surreyboy84 Speedbird 95 was the latest callsign that the captain had used in his simulator sessions. His mind probably switched the two callsigns.

[airplanes66]

@surreyboy84 he confused it with his next flight which is easy to do when falling fast and only feet from the ground possibly going to hit beacons and break up

[robingonard]

@surreyboy84 they use call sign speedbird 95 in simulator and emergency simulations, pilot reverted back to his training

[jc1701]

Excellent Job! UK Controller, from a US Controller.

[raymojets]

Well caught, also the emergecy units on route

[Joshilini]

Brilliantly handled by ATC here. I love how British they are... "tah".

[forces077]

this is great thanks