A380 G-XLEB SFO-LHR diverted to YVR due to staff sickness [25 Oct 2016]
 

Just landed in Vancouver after cabin crew were fainting.

One or several, if you know?

It's appears several, must be on the lower deck. Shame the divert was west and not closer to London.

All the crew being taken off to see paramedics.

Divert was made when closest to YYC (Calgary) however it was fogbound at the time, apparently.

How do the airline inform you of new flight arrangements, text, email or do we have to contact BA in the morning?

I'd check the BA App regularly - it tends to be updated at the same time as MMB on the website.

M

Ouch. To be fair, YVR is better positioned to handle a 380. BA use the A10 gate at YYC and it can barely handle a 788

Should get sorted at the airport, But could be a long delay, may need a new crew flown out.
or at minimum to rest a while!

might be worth trying to get moved onto todays vancouver - LHR floght

Typically in this scenario it comes centrally. So MMB / your App will get updated with the arrangements but understandably it can take a while since I imagine BA are not sure what staff are fit to fly and where they are. Note that you may want to refresh the App or use the full site, since this is precisely the area where updates get stuck in a cache. If a decision is made quickly (and the omens aren't good here) you may be told in Vancouver, so locally but that can't be relied upon. Your service is marked, currently, as "rerouted", which normally means they will reinstate the service once the crew situation is resolved. If it goes to "cancelled" you need to ring BA straightaway and get yourself rebooked directly or indirectly. If you want an AC or non BA/AA routing you best do that at the airport, however. Basically the rule is if you want to stay AA or BA then call up, if not then the airport staff need help you, but I dread to think what the queue is like at 01:30 hrs locally. You may want to research your options now so you can steer this in a way that suits you best. Eg. Seattle?

In your shoes, if landside, and assuming staff are overwhelmed with a full A380 half full of Californians, half filled with antsy Brits, I would find a good value hotel, get yourself out of the way and watch BA.com until there is clarity. Assuming you are HBO or the baggage is offloaded (which could be awkward here). The Hilton at the airport is a few miles away from YVR, but not too far, and is connected to the city by good public transport a few blocks off. There are several hotels nearer the airport, but that Hilton is the one in my notebook for VVR irrops. Telephone: +1-604-273-6336

What could have happened that several crew fainted? Something wrong with the hotel food? Or something in the aircraft ventilation system?

This sounds like the cause could have been fumes. Did you notice anything? Did any passengers become I'll?

In this case, do you pay for the hotel and get the money back from BA? Or if that takes a while to get the money back you just wait until BA sorts you out, which I guess takes a long time?

Also is this considered force majeure due to crew sickness as in no compensation for the delay? Or can you say that the crew fainted due to a problem with the airplane and it's the airline's fault?

I don't think people usually faint from food poisoning. They might feel nauseous, vomit, or experience diarrhea in combination with general weakness and perhaps a fever.

IANAMD = I Am Not A MD

Obviously, diversion due to crew sickness/fainting is extraordinary circumstances and does not give rise to EC 261/04 claim - no matter the reason for the sickness. It will be uphill if you try to argue that BA could have forseen and should have avoided the crew getting sick.

Ermm not if the problem is a maintenance issue with the A380 ventilation system. We know that BA is happy to fly A380s around with no water in the toilets, ovens that do not work and food refrigeration systems that fail so I guess faulty ventilation is just another one to add to the list (if this is the cause)

Yes, it's easier to pay yourself and reclaim the hotel cost. Particularly if you have status I don't see the point in standing in a queue for 2 in the morning when you can sort yourself out for probably the same cost as the airline. Generally BA are quite fast in this scenario, it can be paid by Customer Relations direct and there will be clear evidence on their computer as to the circumstances here. Two weeks perhaps, if you call up?

It's a bit early to speculate the cause of this and whether the delay/cancellation provisions apply. On the face of the limited information it seems to fit the commonsense definition of "extraordinary" to me, which is an important point here, and is not "inherent", but I would need more information really.

Thanks for the advice!

Reuters: 25 British Airways passengers & crew admitted to hospitals in Vancouver for smoke inhalation after plane declared medical emergency

BA emergency landing sends 25 to hospital at YVR for smoke inhalation
 

This is now 'Breaking News' on the Daily Mail (obviously take any 'facts' with a pinch of salt) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...Vancouver.html

Wonder if the person quoted from Twitter is the OP?

The fact that this has been picked up by news media makes me think that BA are in for a particularly bumpy ride on this, especially after LCY last week.

Not sure why it would make a difference but Twitter poster states they are Bronze. The OP FT profile says Silver.

In any case, hope everyone affected makes it back soon and well.

Just out of sheer curiousity (and assuming this particular incident is fume related rather than something else) thinking about the comments recently on the A380 water/ovens situations and other incidents further back, has anyone collected any stats as to which airframes issues are occurring with. I'd be interested to see whether they're evenly distributed across the fleet, or whether some of the whalejets are more problem-children than others?

This is concerning, people who actually are meant to in charge if something goes wrong fainting from smoke inhalation on board the plane. Maintenance have something to answer for here, if indeed all this is true.

Just read this quote from the Daily Mail:

Passenger XXXXXXXX tweeted the airline: 'Currently in Vancouver having been diverted from SFO to LHR. What are my options for flights. I'm an exec bronze member.'

What a DYKWIA!

This is all speculation.

Thank god all are safe and sound on the ground. Smoke suggests fire, and that's pretty scary. Hope no Samsung phones or vape smokers spontaneously combusted.

Having only recently taken off from SFO, wonder how close the aircraft was to Maximum Landing Weight. Looking at the Flight Aware tracking, doesn't seem it circled, although I suppose it could have been dumping fuel from Calgary to Vancouver.

BA.COM showing the flight due to arrive into LHR at 19:10. Presume that is just a ferry flight with no passengers.

BBC now reporting it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37761980

"Twenty-five crew members went to local hospitals as a precaution but were later discharged, said BA spokeswoman Michele Kropf.

The crew were not treated for smoke inhalation as reported, she said."

I know there are lots of crew on an A380 but surely 25 would be all of them including Pilots?!

BA.com shows the flight as having left at 2 AM (it landed at around midnight). That's an impressively fast turn-around considering the entire crew was taken sick (and would have eventually run out of hours). I wonder if they had an A380 crew standing-by in Vancouver? The daily Vancouver service is back to 747 so wouldn't really know why an A380 crew would be here.

Good to hear that all pax and crew are safe and sound and hopefully everyone will make it back to LHR soon.

Declaring an emergency when 680nm away from Vancouver, and landing there 30 minutes later ?

This has been fixed since but the post makes no sense: "Accident: British Airways A388 near Vancouver on Oct 24th 2016, 25 treated for smoke inhalation" and then later " none of the occupants was treated for smoke inhalation". Erm, what?

The real Sun quotes a BA spoke as saying they "can't confirm it was smoke inhalation":

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-n...-with-ill-crew