Crash landing at Heathrow

[Tchocky]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7194086.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/uk_enl_1200577689/img/1.jpg

:o

A handful of slight injuries, thankfully.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

boeing engineering at its finest !!! :rock:

[Happy Times]

boeing engineering at its finest !!! :rock:

You meen the part where the plane lost all its power and electronics?:hmm:

[sonar732]

boeing engineering at its finest !!! :rock:
You meen the part where the plane lost all its power and electronics?:hmm:

I'm sure that Boeing will look at it's fleet after this...but personally, I think it is the engineering that kept everyone alive.

Sometimes you have to look at the good of a situation...especially when it entails human lives.

[Konovalov]

Today is a great day to be alive. :up:

I manage operations of a small logistics freight forwarder in Hounslow only a couple of minutes away from where this happened. Indeed the aircraft that use this runway for landings fly almost directly over our office.

What a strange day. First we had a power cut at our office premises around 10:30am this morning and then at lunchtime one of Boeings 777's decides to park itself almost on the A30.

My only gripe is that I didn't take my DSLR to work as on sunny days I take some lunchbreaks opposite Hatton Cross station in a small patch of parkland with other keen aircraft spotters and photographers watching commercial aircraft come into land on that exact runway. I would have got some great shots. I'll have to wait now till Friday morning though from what I've seen it's probably safe to assume that the BA 777 will still be sitting there tomorrow morning. If I get some shots tomorrow I will post them here.

Thank god for that BA pilot. I'm telling you know that if the pilot didn't get that 777 over the airport perimeter fence then everybody on board that aircraft would be dead along with dozens if not hundeds of people driving along the A30 and the businesses that are in the area. This would have been a disaster of unimaginable proportions.

As I said earlier, today is a good day to be alive. :yep:

[sonar732]

Today is a great day to be alive. :up:

I manage operations of a small logistics freight forwarder in Hounslow only a couple of minutes away from where this happened. Indeed the aircraft that use this runway for landings fly almost directly over our office.

What a strange day. First we had a power cut at our office premises around 10:30am this morning and then at lunchtime one of Boeings 777's decides to park itself almost on the A30.

My only gripe is that I didn't take my DSLR to work as on sunny days I take some lunchbreaks opposite Hatton Cross station in a small patch of parkland with other keen aircraft spotters and photographers watching commercial aircraft come into land on that exact runway. I would have got some great shots. I'll have to wait now till Friday morning though from what I've seen it's probably safe to assume that the BA 777 will still be sitting there tomorrow morning. If I get some shots tomorrow I will post them here.

Thank god for that BA pilot. I'm telling you know that if the pilot didn't get that 777 over the airport perimeter fence then everybody on board that aircraft would be dead along with dozens if not hundeds of people driving along the A30 and the businesses that are in the area. This would have been a disaster of unimaginable proportions.

As I said earlier, today is a good day to be alive. :yep:

Was the A30 getting ready to take off? I haven't found any photos that show how close to the road it actually was.

[lesrae]

Was the A30 getting ready to take off? I haven't found any photos that show how close to the road it actually was.

The A30 is a main road that runs alongside the airport ;)

Link to map (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=heathrow&ie=UTF8&om=0&ll=51.469943,-0.44486&spn=0.038977,0.090122&t=h&z=14&iwloc=addr) - the crash was at the east end of the south runway asI understand it.

If that was a systems failure then BZ to the pilot :up:

[Konovalov]

The A30 is a main road that runs alongside the airport ;) .
Ooops, I should have made that a bit clearer for the non-locals. :oops:

the crash was at the east end of the south runway asI understand it.
Yes, that is correct. There is a good map of the incident on the BBC news website midway down the page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7194086.stm

[If that was a systems failure then BZ to the pilot :up:
You bet. :yep: Give the man more than a medal. I reckon the Chief Exec of BA Willie Walsh should reward the pilot with that old parked Concorde which still sits outside one of the BA maintenance hangers just across from the crash scene. :up:

[STEED]

I checked the Internet and saw my flight was delayed for 15 minutes now I'm here I've been told it's canceled.

And now the punchline -
This is not good enough.


Well my dear, there is a crashed plane on the runway. I'm sorry this has caused your flight to be canceled, by the way, grow up up you arrogant person.

[Oberon]

I personally think that the best part of todays incident was the fact that Gordon Browns plane was one of the ones which got stuck waiting to take off after the landing. :lol:

[STEED]

I personally think that the best part of todays incident was the fact that Gordon Browns plane was one of the ones which got stuck waiting to take off after the landing. :lol:

Yea but it was the first to be held up meaning he would be first to go on the green light, bloody shame he was not further back.

[CCIP]

How bizzare. Just a week ago I was flight-simming my way around europe on a BA plane and touched down short of the runway in heathrow too and busted up my landing gear just a little. The only difference there was that my plane was a 737, it was the north runway I missed, and I missed it because of ridiculously thick fog that suddenly came up on approach and confused me on what I planned to be a comfy visual landing :dead:

[Tchocky]

How bizzare. Just a week ago I was flight-simming my way around europe on a BA plane and touched down short of the runway in heathrow too and busted up my landing gear just a little. The only difference there was that my plane was a 737, it was the north runway I missed, and I missed it because of ridiculously thick fog that suddenly came up on approach and confused me on what I planned to be a comfy visual landing :dead:
if this happens again, contact the proper authorities. You may be useful. ;)

[Biggles]

"Aviation expert Kieran Daly, from Flight International magazine, said not a single Boeing 777 had been lost in a crash since the aircraft was launched in 1995."

Now that is mighty impressive.

[Linton]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYwQ4EHQY8Y

[bookworm_020]

The aircarft looks a write off, but at least every survived!:yep: I bet the pilot woun't be buying beers for awhile!:D

[CCIP]

"Aviation expert Kieran Daly, from Flight International magazine, said not a single Boeing 777 had been lost in a crash since the aircraft was launched in 1995."

Now that is mighty impressive.

Yea, when the incident was still "breaking news", my first question was "what airplane?"
Then it came out it was a 777 and I scratched my head for a while after drawing a blank on trying to think of previous incidents involving that. Indeed a very good record it has.

Yea, I'd say it looks like a total loss to me. But whatever happened, it sure handled that landing well. That does look like a dangerously high AoA in the video above, too. I guess it's just a lucky model number! :88)

Cheers to the pilot. So far it looks like he'll be the hero of the day.

[Jimbuna]

The aircarft looks a write off, but at least every survived!:yep: I bet the pilot woun't be buying beers for awhile!:D

Your not kidding!! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v499/c_jane24/Smileys/4_6_100.gif

[Konovalov]

I'm going to take a stab at it and guess that wind shear struck the 777 in the final moments of it's approach. At lunchtime outside our office the weather was highly changeable in that the wind was at times gusting very strongly before suddenly dropping down in intensity to almost total calm. We also had from no where a sudden burst of rain which was almost like hail. In short the weather was very unsettled. I'm guessing from this that we were on the edge of a weather front around the Heathrow and Hounslow areas between 11am to around 3pm when the weather was extremely unsettled. There are also a couple of very large aircraft maintenance hangers within close proximity to the runway approach and I wonder if this in some way along with the weather conditions contributed to the crash. So I'm giving Boeing and the 777 the benefit of the doubt right now. The next 48 hours should prove interesting with regards to the accident investigation prelim report. :hmm:

[Steel_Tomb]

weather could have had an impact on the aircraft, but not the extent that it would loose all electrical power...that is a very serious problem indeed! It could just have been some faulty wireing. We will just have to wait for the BAA's report on the crash.

[Jimbuna]

I'm putting it down to HunterICX being given a turn in the pilots seat:lol:

[CCIP]

Well there's the crew. Cheers to them again :up:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7196526.stm

[Skybird]

I'm going to take a stab at it and guess that wind shear struck the 777 in the final moments of it's approach. At lunchtime outside our office the weather was highly changeable in that the wind was at times gusting very strongly before suddenly dropping down in intensity to almost total calm. We also had from no where a sudden burst of rain which was almost like hail. In short the weather was very unsettled. I'm guessing from this that we were on the edge of a weather front around the Heathrow and Hounslow areas between 11am to around 3pm when the weather was extremely unsettled.

I thought something like wind myself. On german TV they said that the plane all of a sudden dropped massively while already being very close to the runway. While I cannot exlcude tehcnical defects of course, I think wind is the most likely candidate for being the origin of this mess.

as was said above, the 777 has a good reputation for technical reliability. And as far as this amateur that i am can say, i prefer the cockpit ergonomy of modern Boeing designs anytime over Airbus. I cannot imagine that we have to think in terms of pilot error regarding this accident.

[Linton]

Interim accident report seems to blame the fadecs or signalling to them!
Edited for clarification.

[CCIP]

Interim accident report seems to blame the fadecs!
From the reports I've heard so far, honestly it sounds like the only thing that could've happened - it's been said so far that they lost not engine power, but response from the autothrottle, and it wouldn't budge when they tried manual input. Which entirely makes sense I guess - I presume they were just gliding down at low power until that point and everything looked right. Sounds like it simply got stuck at some point between the plane starting the final approach and the time the crew noticed the lack of response.

What are the chances of it failing though? Sounds like something really went wrong, assuming there should be enough redundancy in the system.

Has there been any incidents on other types of planes with similar FADEC systems? Or would this technically be the first one? :hmm:

[Linton]

Just think of basic electronic systems for a minute.If you send a bad signal down a wire it will affect all the end users.The signal in this case seems to be an increase thrust signal.The signal will be the same whether it was generated by the auto thrust or manually.It ends up in the same place and will be in the same language.Now imagine that signal is corrupted for some reason.The signal does not get through and thrust will be frozen at its current position.In this case that is idle power.Until that rogue signal is removed nothing is going to get through.
This is the first time this has happened to multiple engines at the same time.
Result is a very big glider.

[HunterICX]

I'm putting it down to HunterICX being given a turn in the pilots seat:lol:

I'm affraid if it really was me, there was nothing to photograph actually :oops:

HunterICX

[Linton]

A new lighting system is to be installed at Heathrow:http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/61345/1200695510/runway.gif

[Konovalov]

A new lighting system is to be installed at Heathrow:http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/61345/1200695510/runway.gif

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Very funny. Thankfully because of the timing of the loss of power to both engines and the crew we can have a bit of a laugh. :yep:

[Linton]

In certain industries there is a thread of black humour.It makes us feel that after an incident or accident such a thing will never happen to us.I borrowed that image from an air traffic controller thread on PPrune.

[Jimbuna]

A new lighting system is to be installed at Heathrow:http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/61345/1200695510/runway.gif

Nice one :lol:

[Stealth Hunter]

Khan!!!!!