Heathrow Crash: No Evidence of Failure

THE engines on the British Airways’ Boeing 777 that crash-landed at Heathrow airport last month showed “no evidence” of a mechanical defect or of a take-in of ice or a birdstrike, an accident investigation report said yesterday.

The special bulletin from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), said investigations were now “under way to attempt to replicate the damage seen to the engine’s high pressure fuel pumps and to match this to the data recorded on the accident flight”.

The AAIB also said that a comprehensive examination and analysis was to be conducted on the entire aircraft and engine fuel system.

This examination would include the “modelling of fuel flows taking account of the environmental and aerodynamic effects”.

The Boeing 777, with 136 passengers and 16 crew aboard had flown to London from Beijing on January 17.

With the cockpit crew unable to get the required thrust from the engines as the plane approached Heathrow, the aircraft had come down on the grass “some 1,000ft short of the paved runway surface and just inside the airfield boundary fence”, the report said.

As the plane skidded across the grass and on to the end of the runway, the under part of the aircraft collapsed. All occupants were safely evacuated, with one passenger suffering a broken leg and eight others plus four crew receiving minor injuries.

Yesterday’s report said that the data from the flight recording systems indicates that there were “no anomalies in the major aircraft systems”.

It went on: “The autopilot and the autothrottle systems behaved correctly and the engine control systems were providing the correct commands prior to, during and after the reduction in thrust”.

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