jhm

I was wondering when someone would mention this! Nothing scary about it at all from what I recall, e.g. they did have enough to reach London but decided to divert as a precaution; after investigation by the FAA etc, they found that no rules were broken; etc.

G-BOAC

You mean aside from in the very first post and first replies?!

IAMORGAN - just to be pedantic (as usual ), it was MAN not Scotland for the diversion.

clubman

What? is this not the same incident (744 from LAX) mentioned in the first post, and that we have been discussing here? Do people actually read the posts in a thread before posting? Or are 15 posts too much to read...?

Jenbel

From a safety assessment POV, what they did was fine. From a media 'OMG, they could have died!' then of course they got pilloried - we're back at the disconnect between safety professional's understanding and layman's understanding. OTOH, I'd rather safety decisions were made from a safety POV, rather than a layman's POV!

Macspreader

And I don't think anything had to divert to Scotland - as I recall it was MAN???. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that MAN is in England, albeit the North of said country (and pretty much the middle of the UK) - calling Boddingtons

That's just a wee example of someone getting the facts wrong, but it does show how inaccurate reportage in general can become. Moral of the story is to read the papers for the facts only, not the associated hyperbole.

IAMORGAN

MAN is in England! Obviously i have been duped by mis-reading (or perhaps just plain wrong) a newspaper article. Yes, I was referring to the MAN diversion incident. G-BNLG -the aircraft in question had two in flight shutdowns. The MAN incident was 19th Feb, the second incident on a flight from SIN was 25 feb. Again they continued on to LHR.

When I said 'scared me most' -I am not saying that I think it was unsafe, just that it was the closest I can recall BA coming to a proper 'incident'. Sorry if I got the facts wrong as usual! I fly BA on a weekly basis and wouldn't do so if i felt it was unsafe.

And CLUBMAN, yes I am still on the LAX incident!! And yes, I have read the posts. But again, sorry if I have repeated what was said already -I did say that the post was rambling.

Hopefully I have the facts correct now.

kered

Or the 747 that suffered the four engine shutdown, after flying into volcanic ash on the way to MEL (I think).

Flight crew got the engines restarted & landed safely in Jakarta.

A truly amazing display of airmanship from all concerned ^ ^ ^

BOH

I can recall a couple (more serious than an IFSD) of BA ones in the last 20 years or so. The first was in the mid-late 1980's when a BA747 in fog missed the LHR landing approach. The undercarriage did / almost did take the TV aerials off the roof of the Heathrow Penta Hotel. The poor pilot was fired and sadly took his own life a few years later

The second was in the early 90's with the BAC1-11 that took off from BHX bound for some med holiday destination. The windscreen had been incorrectly fitted (wrong size screws) during the last maintenance and blew out at altitude. One of the two pilots was literally sucked out of the plane but another member of the crew (cabin crew IIRC) held onto his ankles to keep him inside whilst the other flight deck crew made an emergency landing at SOU.

Still probably one of the safest airlines to fly on though........

Swanhunter

I've posted before that the 747 fleet are starting to show their age. Interiors on the older planes are looking quite tatty, and in my experience there have been quite a few problems ranging from a 5 hour delay on the ground at LHR through to non-functioning APU's. I fly 777's on BA much less, but cannot ever recall a technical problem with them.

BAHumbug

Sorry to be a pedant, but isn't it blown out of the plane ? (given the relative pressures).

BAH

IAMORGAN

While we are on the subject, the plane in Kuwait where the pax were all held hostage BA149??IIRC was another pretty serious incident and they lost the a/c that time too.

So i suppose an engine shutdown (don't think it actually FAILED) is rather insignificant -even the overshoot at HAJ ex BHX was more serious than that!

PhilH

IAMORGAN, according to the flight calender you link to on the bottom of your posts, you should be on board BA73 right now on your way to MCT! Don't tell me BA have installed inflight wifi without us noticing!

The Saint

I'm not sure that BA shoulders all the blame for that incident.

kered

But given the lesser air pressure outside the aircraft at altitude, surely it would be a case of being sucked out into the near vacuum ???

Maybe though it�s a case of both Suck & Blow !!!!

Or perhaps that�s for an altogether different forum

Oh dear, I really just have too much time on my hands��..sorry

BAHumbug

I actually don't know (and how marvellously OT this is) but my reasoning is that the higher internal pressure leads to a rush of air exiting the aircraft and blowing anything else out with it.

I'm not even going near the rest of your post...

BAH