British Airways Crash Landing - Flights Disrupted

We’ll all be waiting with great interest for the investigators to figure out what happened to the BA flight which suffered a seriously bumpy landing yesterday at Heathrow.  However, the investigation could take months unless it’s something really obvious.

When you think of the huge amount of planes up in the air every day the amount of incidents and crashes are very few by comparison.  We tend to take it all for granted and forget about the skill and training of the crew.  Statistics tell us we’re more likely to be involvolved in a car accident but somehow that never seems such a scary prospect as a plane crash.  I’m sure anyone who flies has said silent prayers during bad turbulence or kangaroo landings.

I doubt we’ll get to hear the cockpit voice recordings during those horrifying few minutes as most of it would probably be bleeped out.  Following the apparent complete loss of power on final approach, the captain and cockpit crew had to use their experience and training to do whatever they could to land the plane. The cabin crew jumped into action and did a fantastic job of calming everyone and evacuating the aircraft.  It’s a miracle there were no fatalities or serious injuries to those on board or on the ground.

The big passenger jets have computers that can fly the plane and do most of the work, but the crew’s expertise has to kick in when systems fail, so this particular crew were certainly heroes for handling it all so professionally.

Air traffic has been disrupted, of course, with many flights cancelled yesterday and some short haul flights cancelled today, so passengers are advised to call their airline for updates.  The BAA website has some information and a telephone number to call for anybody concerned about family or friends: 0800 389 4193.  www.baa.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 11:15 am and is filed under Airlines, Travel News .

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. 

---

RSS: RSS 2.0

---