johnaalex

Seems a BA flight from AMS to LHR yesterday had an engine on fire and they had to return to AMS and land with one engine. Sounds like another good example of the professionalism and skill of BA crew. Well done all involved.

Petrus

Is there a source for this info? Nothing on the usual sites.

johnaalex

From a friend on the flight. Sorry I don't have the flight number. Sparks were seen coming from the right engine shourtly after take off. The plane did have a bird strike on the incoming flight.

brixton

i did mention this in the existing tread regarding the ORD-LHR engine issue.

it appeared on a local Amsterdam news site (dutch only) : http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/173011/v...en-enorme-knal

the incoming flight had experienced a bird strike, and the return to LHR was delayed by 4 hours according to the article. after take off the right hand engine experienced the issue as shown in the video in the article.
the lady that posted the video had nothing but praise for the flight crew after a safe return to AMS, but no praise for all pax left to figure out their own hotels for the night and claim with BA afterwards.
said passenger mentions that the other passengers started using #BA433 on twitter to group their complaints, but that's probably for a more savvy member here to post

Steve_ZA

Some unhappy folk out there: https://twitter.com/hashtag/BA433?src=hash

flatlander

Flightradar24 shows the departure, some pootling around (sorting out the situation and preparing to land, I'm sure) and return to AMS about an hour later.

I'm frankly not surprised the ground handling at AMS failed these customers. Most of my (non-KLM) handling experiences at Amsterdam have been between average and poor (BA and Easy). Menzies, who handle Easyjet, are particularly incompetent and lackadaisical. I'm not sure who handles BA at AMS - anyone know?

Improving the ground handling during problems, in many of its locations, would be an effective way for BA to improve its reputation and quality.

wythy

Unfortunately, BA have opted for the cheapest possible cost approach when it come to outsourced handling. There's very little value in the contract to the Handling agents to provide extra staff coverage during irrops.

simons1

http://thebasource.com/british-airwa...hnical-return/

Winchy78

I had an uncle on this flight - the BA Source write-up differs from what he told me and the write up on AVHerald - http://avherald.com/h?article=4ae4c256&opt=0

The bird strike happened on the in-bound and caused a sizeable delay - but then was cleared to make the return trip with the engine going pop just after take-off. He said it was somewhat exciting and that understandably some passengers were pretty traumatised by the whole thing - not helped by BA's woeful support when they got back into the airport. Also, and I'm aware hindsight is a great thing, they all had questions as to how the plane had been cleared to fly post-bird strike when the engine wasn't actually ok.

Not BA's finest hour.

rapidex

What evidence do you have to support such a wild accusation?How do you know the engine was not ok,and either developed a new fault or perhaps had another bird strike?

Your statement is rather insulting to the professional engineers who work hard keeping the aircraft serviceable.I certainly would not question their integrity in this manner.

AAtticus

Video showing sparks coming from the engine (don't mind the overly dramatic text)
http://bit.ly/2xzltZJ

flatlander

Of course not; and then many of the handling staff at AMS barely do the usual job of routine dispatch. The time one of them marked a passenger as offloaded then gave his boarding pass back to him and allowed him to board is particularly memorable. AMS airport itself is also unhelpful, it barely has any staff for help or inquiries during the day and it's deserted at night (past 22:00). So even a question like "Where are BA's handling agent so I can ask them to fulfil their duty of care?" goes unanswered late at night.

I feel that the aggrieved passengers should contact their consumer protection regulator, that's the only pressure BA would understand (and I have minimal faith in the UK CAA in this respect).

Winchy78

Occam's razor - bird hits engine, engine "fixed", engine then immediately fails when next used. I'm completely open that this may be an incorrect conclusion - but based on the currently available facts this appears how it played out.

That aside BA's ground handling on this was a joke.

rapidex

The ground handling I accept,however you have no evidence to suggest a link between these two events.

rlnnpt

Plane was A321 so probably CFM56, which is a highly reliable engine (V2500 isn't bad either though), as a regular flier I'll sleep much more soundly thinking that ground crew didn't have ability to do a full strip on an engine post bird-strike therefore declared the engine safe to the best of their ability, vs the possibility that the engine spontaneously failed. Quite possible that the engine was fine post bird strike and some tooling was left in post inspection (if it was a 4 hr job they'd have had all the kit out!), obviouly will be investigated.