Probe into Heathrow crash - 18 Jan 08

[sanddune1981]

woa appand??

[metroprort2002]

NO MORE BOEING!!

NO MORE USA!!!

[drewgboi]

actually this was due to the Rolls Royce Trent 800 engine, having an electrical problem due to frost, i am not american i am British so please dont bring prejudice remarks like that towards comrades. its silly.

[LukeEvans26]

It wasn't lack of fuel. They always have enough fuel for a few go-arounds, diversion and holding at the alternate airfield. Ice crystals formed in the fuel clogging the both engines and restricting fuel flow to them. The temperatures in flight weren't unusually cold but proceedures have been changed to guard against this happening in future. I read in the paper a while ago that BA made the captain redundant and because he has a crash on his license, he can't get work.

[WiiOps]

reporter at the end is my friends dad LOOL



[danikesta]

Sam Bestic

[brawlerpit]

@WiiOps  Same! I've met the reporter :D

[dutchgoing]

It ran out of fuel. I hear that planes don't travel with a full load of fuel because it is cheaper not to, a head wind can make a difference to fuel use. I recall reading an article after this accident happened saying that the pilots would have been looking at fuel gagues for some hours before landing, but decided to take a chance rather than embarrass themselves by diverting. BA is a very nasty company indeed.

[4joeblack1]

dat plan is stil in heathrow my dad take me ta see it wen i was workin der 4 2weeks

[swifterX60]

what is dis shit?

[karolinA332]

Whats happened???

[ZZ009966]

The plane crashed -> the pilot is a hero.

Am I the only one who feels some logical connection is missing here ?

[goone1987]

yeah thats what i thought

[fightingtemeraire]

the plane lost power on final approach

the pilot's reaction to this situation was textbook and saved the lives of all on board

-> the pilot is a hero

[cheguevara2]

my plane from spanien was behind this plane, they sent us to manchester and said what was happened. its was very scary

[krucial08]

i was in dat plane it was really scarey

[hariboom]

I remember when this happened, ton te news they interviewed a couple in the airport as they were let home off from that flight, and the couple was like - 'we didnt even notice it crashed landed' - wtf?

[jthqrules]

it werent that long ago !!! i live 5 miles away from heatrow this was only a month or so ago so ud have to have a crap memory not to remember it !!!

[pumpuki]

I was travelling to Dubai when they announced that in the Heathrow Express train on my way to Heathrow from Paddington. Thank God my flight was in Terminal 3. Yet we were 2 hours late, and the planes used 1 lane for take off and landing. It was chaos !!

[dustziggy]

A Qantas 747 had similar problem recently. Water from a galley dripped onto the main power regulator which takes power from all engines and APU. It blew up. No power anymore

[UAL4ever]

But they had emergency Power to give them enough emergency power to reach their nearest airport.

[nyepski]

British Airways are flying there Chinese aircraft crash investigator into Heathrow. Mr Wat Wen Fu Kin Wong arrives tomorrow....

[quelneuc]

Love it. Bet laf iv had all Monday !! Thks A lot.

[quelneuc]

Did anyone else refer to Goggle Earth for the exact location of BA38 final full stop landing ? Check it out for a coincidence ( blue dot ). Seems Mr. Coward ( respect ) found Heathrow,s G SPOT !!!

[3LC0mmun1sT]

it was lack of fuel apparently

[Fatheed666]

I Lol'ed at some of these comments.

Firstly Clarky344..

Get a life tbh. Why whenever something goes wrong does it get blamed on muslims? I'm not a muslim myself but I think its shit that every muslim is now stereotyped as a terrorist.

K1NG1T..

Clearly didn't watch the video. Why will he have to find a new job if the fault was with the plane, not his flying?

Anyway, it's not very often a plane crashes these days and the pilot did a good job of landing and making sure nobody was hurt. =]

[OwnedByMyGran]

What about jews, you can't rule them out

[brian2art]

My tutor was in the plane!

Check out his work 'Hock-Aun Teh's Exhibition at China' or just look for his web site

[AtlantiXYL]

good pilot, good pilot. Why wasn't there any landing videos. what were the british doing that time!!!!

[DjHardaFasta]

Made the that day more exciting nothing came of it! no one died! its entertainment!

[clarky344]

Muslim terrorist attack I expect

[scunkmonkey]

ran out of gas

[anonymousencounter3]

i had just finished my sandwich as it happend

[shanebear67]

lol thats sucks, theres never been a 777 crashed landed

[elcangriandres]

Are there any images of the plane gliding?

[K1NG1T]

the pilot will av2 find a new job

[Kmemzy]

saddd

[AthensFlat]

Flat for sale in Central Athens.

Check AthensFlat account

[AirbusBoeing2008]

I think the crew should be hailed as Heroes. Especialy SF/O John Coward the PIC at the time of the power falure whopulled off this remarkable landing. All the crew did very well.

[kimcliftrn]

Fish

[towelplugholedude]

man thats weird for there to be a crash in Heathrow!!

[Jeffgoalie]

well heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports

[brian2art]

My personal tutor was in the crash!

Am glad everyone else is safe.

Check out my tutors artwork 'Hock-Aun Teh's Exhibition at China"

[marky1333]

Watch "Japanese 911" interesting

[kimcliftrn]

just wait when the engines start falling off because Boeing refused to redesign a major flaw.

[wakeuplateDOTcom]

check the blog wakeuplate dot com

[celticlofts]

For Sale: Mechanics special, one slightly used Boeing 777. Can be adapted to water landing craft. All the emergency equipment has been tested and works fine. No decent offer refused. Please contact Willie Walsh at British Airways.

[magedallasamiha]

The pilot face a massive loss of power during landing but some aviation experts said that a bifailure engine would never to occur.Landing could occur safely with a monfailure engine. last words for the investigators.!

[mommoid]

Flight Rheinmain to Mcquire Field via refueling @ Harmon AFB in 1955 aboard C-54 Sky

Master with crew and 28 AF Pilots and 4 U.S. Army men went lacking for airspeed after both outboard engines blew and/or caught fire and extingishing fluid no help,tail down and loosing altitude and prepaing for water ditching 1,600 miles out, red lite on and no place to go except down!

[superb2222]

its pilot Error and government hide it very beautifuly. if such thing happend with any asian or african airline there woud be a very big issue then. And that airline maybe banned. And Alqaida maybe blamed and they called it terrorist act.

[albirsteve]

I think that is what you would call 'Paranoid'

[RagdollPhysics]

and you know it's pilot error because...? were you standing behind the pilot or something, if not then you are talking out of your arse.

[celticlofts]

No the reason why they're usually banned is bacause of poor maintenance or none at all. BA have a pretty good service record

[M11RC]

Update..

Seems the "rat" had been deployed prior to landing. This is a small windmill type generator that is released under the body in the event of total power failure.

[Cuntlickerr]

As a seasoned pilot I can say that this was pilot error.Pilots miss landing trajectory,try to recoup lost thrust,too late,too soon,plane lands on underbelly.Nothing to do with engine,the engines CANNOT lose momentum so fast with seconds of landing without backup power being initiated for some short time

[sundog47]

Yeah but RC aircraft don't count and there is no such thing as a seasoned 24 year old pilot, what ratings do you have that qualify you to judge an ATP.

[fightingtemeraire]

I can say with some certainty that you are not a seasoned pilot. the engines failed to respond to demands for increased thrust, first from the autothrottle then from manual intervention.

[dethman263]

The captain obviously saved all souls on board by cutting the fuel injection, or else a gigantic fire would have been sparked from the turbines. The crash has initially been attributed to the failure of the engines to increase thrust when the autothrottle was pushed forward, indicating either a control system failure or an engine failure. The plane stalled, and landed hard, shearing off the gear and then the undercarraige.

[caddict69]

just because the chinese sabotage this plane, they want to retaliate because u.k. accused china of spying a few months ago...this what the motives.....they dont like british...war..

[locouk]

Yeah, naked and left to freeze ur balls off in the Antartic. Stop spamming twat.

[tassoss1]

Amazing Pilots and Crew job real Herors,unbeliveble to Glide a 777 it normal fals like a stone from sky but those profesionals Pilots made it till airport

[netbeans01]

My opinion is Pilot Error: Airplane came below the glideslope. Pilot realised he was coming in too low and short, they advanced the throttles, engines spool up N1 too slow, airplane could not gain enough lift. Don't be mistaken by the engines failed. The GE90 does not perform like a F22. Engines that size do not spool up that quickly, thus the airplane came short of the runway and officially had a "hard landing". (CFIT) DFDR and FDR will reveal the truth.

[sundog47]

Uh the approach is flown in Auto/appr/lndg.

The engines were Rolls Royce Trent 8104's.

The CVR is likely to contain things like "what the f--- was that" and "oh shit". The QAR if equipped will tell the fuel story long before the DFDR is translated.

[netbeans01]

Not if ILS / CATIII was on an MEL. He would have had to fly manual. I know of other operators (no names mentioned) where their approach is too steep but attempted to land anyways. In this case it may be that he was under the glideslope.  As far as engine types, it doesn't matter what type of engines that just semantics. The point is the engines won't spool up as fast as the pilot demands. DFDR will have the parameters necessary to ultimately determine the cause.

[sundog47]

I think all was as it should be on this approach

I believe an auto throttle failure(for whatever reason) happened and blindsided the crew. With the inertia of the approach hard to effect even with emerg. power, and the proximity to the ground the guys just ran out of time. Happened to me in Az. Got blown down by a micro burst and had no time to correct.

[ponchott]

Bit like the English football team, FAILURE !!

[PDRBHarleyRider]

Ha, thats rich coming from an Aussie.

[rolficus]

lucky it didnt hit any houses muslims would cop another bollocking lol

[Cohengenuity]

airports should be surrounded by 2 miles of soft materials - hay, cotton fields, marhmallows, pillows, geese. Good job to the pilots and crew!

[simonddavies]

and kittens!!!

don't forget kittens! they are nice and soft!

[masterman22ify]

@Cohengenuity but they crashed the plane

[jermaineo4life]

i heard that gordan brown was getting driven under the air strip just before the plane crashed!!!!

[simonddavies]

lol

sounds like BS

[adaaaamm]

he was waiting to fly to china

[Clearsky1945]

When the 777 had made this landing on the runway, it would have been a real disaster. But now the grass prevented starting sparks and slowed down the plane just in time. After all no recommandation from this time on to land on the grass....

[westonite]

And if you do it 20 times, she'll live forever. Twice.

[Shipdocks]

Apparently the co-pilot was at the controls...

[neelradhakrishnan]

So..?

[Shipdocks]

I Was just stating that he was, thats what ive heard on the news today... :/

[neelradhakrishnan]

Oh, sorry, I thought you were blaming him.

[johnnyblunder]

stalled 2 land 2 early and hitting the grass hard plane loses undercarriage and skids to a halt,it has been known for planes to be running on near empty as they tend to stick just the right amount of fuel in and if its a head wind all the way back it can really run short on fuel,and with almost home perhaps the pilots thought no need for a landing somewhere in europe and paying landing fees we will just press on and result.

[wernershmidt]

A 777 loses all power seconds from landing? Sounds like crap or a one in a billion catastrophic failure to me.Wind shear? Pilot error ?Eyewitnesses reported a strange engine sound.If he was to low and to fast, he may have called for TOGA power, but the engines can take a few seconds to spool back up, and if he was below 100 feet and dropping quickly, the go-around that was being initiated would have been too late, hence the heavy runway strike with the mainwheels being ripped off !

[jkerrigan1990]

well, its true. The engines failed to respond at 600 feet during final approach and two miles from the aerodrome. Besides the TOGA command is suprisingly very quick to respond, even at a low altitude. Definatly not Pilot error. The pilots did their duty and they deserve credit.

[neelradhakrishnan]

TOGA is a button to put on full throttle, isn't it? If so, how will it have helped if the engines failed??

[wernershmidt]

If engines had stalled TOGA power would not have been effective.Not a button, its full engine throttle. Perhaps they did that but had the spoilers still set in landing config ? A double flame out is possible if both engines ingested birds, very rare though.I agree full credit should go to the Tech Crew providing it wasnt human error.

[neelradhakrishnan]

Oh, ok... So why can they not put a mesh or something similar infront of the eengine to stop birds?

[dooverlaki]

many aircraft have a toga button

[JOSHUATERRYSIMPSONS]

i can never step foot on a plane again that would be so scary

[quelneuc]

So dont ever go out again, you might get run over by a bus.

[urquiza78]

Good job British Airways pilot. Good to know they can handle it when things go Pete Tong, am sure those passengers are grateful. Was it human error? an electronic landing mis-calculation? flock of geese? complete loss of power looks most likely a definite splash has taken place judging by the wreckage.

[urquiza78]

This ever hppedned before?

I know a vickers viscount plane (type793) crash landed a few miles short of its destination-Gatwick airport (feb 17 1959) Although the passengers were not so lucky. one passenger however was miraculously unscathed, Adnan Menderes the Turkish prime minister on his way to sign the London agreements on the cyprus issue.

[ski968]

Flew(pilot) the 777 and flew it to LHR. Best engineered plane I ever flew. Something stinks here, fueling error or too much time holding. Electronic fault(s) on both electronic fuel controlers(EECs) is unlikely.

[MarquisdeBarrabas]

Boeing damage control.

[rockinroy555]

software glitch or cheap chinese petrol?

Maybe the pilot screwed up. Gonna look stoopid when it gets out.

[ski968]

Usually when the media/witnesses say the pilot was a hero, something less flattering ends up in the investigation report. BA is a very good airline, hopefully the pilots where not to blame.

[judgejudyslover]

yeah it's the pilot that will look "stoopid" and not the people that spell ridiculously

[ski968]

what is your point?

[judgejudyslover]

sorry i was sopposed to be replying to rockinroy555

[shagohood7]

I'm wondering what was the cause

[JOSHUATERRYSIMPSONS]

i'm to but wot really happen

[shagohood7]

No idea till now mate

[anwar068]

The pilot did an amazing job I think