Simply Shocking!!! The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a British Airways jet lost an engine due to fire on takeoff from LAX and decided to continue onward with the flight to London!!!
“The Los Angeles air-traffic-control tapes, obtained by The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act, show that controllers who saw the fiery engine failure with the jet just 296 feet in the air were immediately concerned about the flight and ready to guide it back to the airport. But the decision to return or keep flying rested with the captain and the airline. Ever since, pilots and aviation regulators have debated the decision of the pilots and British Airways. Their questions: Even if the plane was capable of reaching its destination, and perhaps legal to fly, was it smart to try? And was it safe?”
The incident raises extremely serious questions about British Airways choosing economics over safety of human life due to the reduced margin for error. The LAX tower deleted flight 268’s flight plan beceause they were certain that they would return to the airport.
“Flight 268’s decision clearly surprised Los Angeles air-traffic controllers. The flight took off at about 9:24 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2005. Trouble was soon visible, as evident in radio discussions of “Speedbird 268 heavy.” (“Speedbird” is aviation’s call sign for British Airways; 268 was the flight number; “heavy” refers to jumbo jets.)
“Remember that Speedbird I told you about?” the controller asked a colleague.
“Yeah.”
“He’s engine-out — No. 2 engine out. He’s going to continue to his destination or as far as he can get,” the departure controller said.
“OK. I have no flight plan on him.” The tapes show the controllers had assumed the pilot wasn’t going to London, so they deleted the flight plan from the computer. To reconstruct it, the departure controller called the tower.
“Is he going?” the tower controller who had seen the engine flames asked.
“He’s going,” was the answer.
“If you would have saw what we saw out the window, you’d be amazed at that,” said the tower controller.”
This decision (An emergency landing would have required dumping $30,000 of fuel, and the airline might have owed $275,000 in compensation to passengers under European Union rules if the flight was more than five hours late) wasn’t customer focused and creates serious questions about the difference between US and UK law on the issues involved.
I mean could you imagine being a passenger on that flight, seeing flames in an engine and then continue onward for a transatlantic flight of several hours? I have trouble grasping it.
British Airways should be transparant here, admit this was not wise and communicate exactly how they will act differently in the future instead of quietly communicating with the FAA.
British Airways is the safest operator in the world; they conferenced the operations centre prior to continuing the Flight 268 to Heathrow! The aircraft in question can safely fly on 3 engines for hours without diverting.