Originally Posted by
jaffaq
A hole in the plane apparently.
The team in SFO had to send photos of the damage to structural engineers in London. After some time the pilot said the hole was deemed too large to safely fly with without repair and that they called the head structural engineer in. After some more time, they devised a quick temporary solution (super strength duct tape?) which the engineers applied in SFO.
That's a new one on me, makes a change from the usual dents. Normally technical faults are not extraordinary and therefore compensation is payable (and yes it would be for the end to end time here, looking at SFO to DUB, one compensation payment of 600€). The bar is set quite high, from the airline's perspective, nevertheless if the hole was caused by (e.g.) an asteroid then BA may have some wriggle room to deny the claim.
I would claim 600€. They may pay automatically, they may claim it was caused by an unspecified external agency. In the latter case you should still pursue all the way until the present proof that it was an asteroid / bird strike or whatever.