This sounds troublesome, based on the above and in other posts this year at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...61-2004-a.html BA seem to have decided that their technical faults on their planes are "extraordinary circumstances not expected in the day to day running of an airline", however BA seem to be basing their opinions on
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes...ances-list.pdf
Their excuse "This discovery was made during final safety checks
of the previous flight the aircraft operated."
Does not seem to tie into the general word on that (draft) document which states "immediately prior to departure or in-flight". Given this was an aircraft departing from a BA hub, I'm not sympathetic to BA at all. In fact I think the original case about technical faults was about knock on delays.
Nonetheless, this thread may be better dealt with over at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...61-2004-a.html