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Old Feb 24, 2026 | 10:33 am
  #1694  
sdix
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Originally Posted by tom1985
BA285 LHR - SFO (G-XLEH) boarded on time today, pushed back and then oddly sat on tarmac for 20 minutes without progressing further.

Captain announced a fault was being reported with one of the engines so we would need to return to the gate. On arrival back at the gate, engineering boarded and started diagnosing the issue. We were told that there would either be a simple fix, or a not so simple fix, but to please be patient and wait at least an hour to see if the simple fix would resolve the problem.

Long story short, the simple fix did not resolve the issue, so they continued with an attempt to swap out the ‘main computer system and perform a software update” however unfortunately, it did not resolve the problem and the flight was cancelled approximately 4 hours after the originally scheduled departure time.

Credit where credits due, they certainly tried hard to get us on our way, see the photo below, whatever was in the box below was swapped out while all passengers remained on board and there must have been at least 8 engineering team members up in the flight deck at one point trying to fix / solve the problem.

Totally understand safety comes first, so appreciate the decision to cancel however it must be said, unfortunately there were no BA ground staff to meet or assist when we de-planed, and we ended up being completely on our own, returning through into arrivals and then basically left to our own devices to figure out a game plan on how to continue our journey.

I wonder what happens if the plane breaks in SFO? Who does maintenance for BA at SFO? Is there a dedicated team and parts for all A380 operators or does each airline have to have their own?

I've shifted all my flights to the 777 so I don't have to find out

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