Originally Posted by mrboh
... the pilot did excellently to make an emergency landing in 13 mins from 37,000 ft and as far as I can tell BA staff were fantastic the whole time, particularly given the location of the landing.
One of the positive outcomes of the SR 111 crash was the revision of procedures for handling inflight fires, with much more aggressive response to getting down onto the ground (for those who do not remember, SR 111 crashed in 1998 due to a fire caused by improper installation of the IFE wiring as well as incorrect wiring components and insulation; the fire detection system failed to detect the fire; illegal holes in bulkheads failed to contain it; and the crew would have been able to land safely if they had known the severity; so one of the procedure changes is to presume all fires are more serious than indicated).
That is one good thing about the aviation industry, it does a great job in learning from past mistakes and avoiding them in the future. Pre-SR 111 I'm sure BA 10 would have flown a bit longer to a more suitable airport (maybe 30 minutes away instead of 13, unless they had more serious trouble indications than just the single horld fire indicator).