In a preliminary report from the AAIB on Thursday’s Boeing 777 crash at London Heathrow (British Airways Flight BA38) in which all 136 passengers and 16 crew survived, it is suggested that ‘unresponsive’ engines are at fault after brief Flight Data Recorder analysis.

In an earlier press conference held at British Airways headquarters, it was stated by Capt. Peter Burkill that his first-officer, John Coward was the handling pilot at the time of the crash.

Following an uneventful flight from Beijing, China, the aircraft was established on an ILS approach to Runway 27L at London Heathrow. Initially the approach progressed normally, with the Autopilot and Autothrottle engaged, until the aircraft was at a height of approximately 600 ft and 2 miles from touch down. The aircraft then descended rapidly and struck the ground, some 1,000 ft short of the paved runway surface, just inside the airfield boundary fence. The aircraft stopped on the very beginning of the paved surface of Runway 27L. During the short ground roll the right main landing gear separated from the wing and the left main landing gear was pushed up through the wing root. A significant amount of fuel leaked from the aircraft but there was no fire. An emergency evacuation via the slides was supervised by the cabin crew and all occupants left the aircraft, some receiving minor injuries.

At 600 feet, two miles out from 27 left on the extended centre-line, the autothrottles commanded increased power but the engines did not respond. The flight crew then moved the throttles manually with the same result. This situation is reported to have continued until the aircraft touched down about 300m from the threshold.

Initial indications from the interviews and Flight Recorder analyses show the flight and approach to have progressed normally until the aircraft was established on late finals for Runway 27L. At approximately 600 ft and 2 miles from touch down, the Autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond. Following further demands for increased thrust from the Autothrottle, and subsequently the flight crew moving the throttle levers, the engines similarly failed to respond. The aircraft speed reduced and the aircraft descended onto the grass short of the paved runway surface.

As yet there is no word on the reason for the APU door being open as observed. All such information about the aircraft state on landing will probably come in the formal report.

As stated in the short preliminary report, the investigation into the crash of G-YMMM will continue until it’s culmination in a full formal report at some point in the future. There may be another ’special’ report a month or so from now.

Full Text Initial Report AAIB Ref: EW/C2008/01/01

Photo Credit: Marc-Antony Payne cc-by-3.0

Read on for the full text of the original initial report:

Read the rest of this entry »

British Gas, the UK’s largest energy supplier has increased the price of their gas and electricity by 15%. This follows on from NPower and EDF who also increased the cost of their energy services in recent days.

This will probable increase the worry of the UK consumer that the government’s measure of inflation (CPI) is no longer representative of the actual level of price inflation being experienced.

Also of note, as of the announcement, British Gas’ Domestic website has been down for some routine maintenance work. The temporary holding page provides emergency contact numbers.

A Boeing 777-200ER (Reg G-YMMM) has undershot runway 27L at Heathrow today and pretty much crashed in the process.

The aircraft which was inbound from Beijing China to Heathrow UK as British Airways flight BA038 (also reported as BA38) touched down about 300 meters from the threshold on the extended centre line of 27 Left. This was within the airfield boundary but on the cut-grass section before the hard-surface of the runway begins.

The aircraft appears to have touched down with the gear deployed but with sufficient force as to almost immediately collapse the maingear and partially collapse the nosegear. The initial contact marks in the grass indicate the maingear touchdown point and in only 30 meters or so, the engine nacelles contacted the ground and left larger gouge-marks in the grass which obscure any sign of the nosewheel contact point. The aircraft then tracked straight toward the runway threshold for about another 200meters before beginning to turn to the right and coming to a hold roughly adjacent the threshold.

The cabin crew successfully evacuated the aircraft via the inflatable emergency slides which were deployed at all the normal exit doors. Some passengers have been treated for minor injuries. The airfield fire service attended and foamed the area to reduce the risk of fire. The aircraft in it’s final resting position had almost completely collapsed maingear, the undercarriage having apparently pushed up through the latter quarter of the wingroots and disrupted the wingroots and the flaps which were set at an apparently normal angle. Some undercarriage components appear to have separated prior to the aircraft coming to rest. The leading edge slat were also configured for landing. The engine nacelles were disrupted by impact with the ground but the engines themselves remained fully attached but the pylons were pushed upwards. It was impossible to tell from the television images whether reverse thrust had been selected or begun to deploy at any point prior to the engines being damaged.

The airfield was closed for a time due to the airfield fire service being unavailable to support other flights. There is also some apparent damage to the taxiway surface to the North of the 27L threshold. I don’t think the ILS equipment was damaged by the aircraft.

There were eye-witness reports from people on the ground watching the approach. They indicate that the approach was abnormal but the reports are conflicting.

My personal speculation would be that a loss of thrust lead to the undershoot. The cause of the loss of thrust would require investigation. The BBC are currently reporting a ‘unknown’ source quoting the pilot as having said that he experienced a ‘loss of power’ and had to glide in.

There will probably be announcements of the likely cause in due course. A full AAIB report will take much longer although any critical failure of this aircraft design may lead to an early ’special bulletin’ later in the year.

Update: Close examination of television pictures shows that the APU intake door located on the fuselage to the right of the main fin ended up in the open position. The implication being that the APU was air-started in order to provide power which may have been lost from the normal engine-mounted generators. This picture shows a 777 with the APU intake door open. No imagery thus far gives any indication of the position of the Ram Air Turbine(located aft of the starboard maingear) although, if deployed, this would have separated from the aircraft when the gear collapsed.

As an aside, with a landing run of only about 330m, this may be the shortest ever survivable landing run of a Boeing 777.

Naturally getting any useful information from the television news media is nigh-on impossible as they lurch from one newsgasm to the next. I could personally have screamed when they excitedly proclaimed that it had been “confirmed” that this was not a “terrorist-related-incident”. Of course it wasn’t a terrorist incident! Accidents happen all the time and the evil bogey-man doesn’t have a hand in them. In fact, the probability of him having a hand in it is really, really remote so please, TV News, grow up and shut up with the ‘terror angle’. We could also do without television presenters *encouraging* witnesses to relate fear when they clearly weren’t particularly frightened. It ’s a disgusting practice of which so-called ‘journalists’ should be ashamed. You could almost feel the disappointment in the presenters when they were told that there was no panic. </rant>

Photo Credit: Adrian Pingstone

There’s news from the USA today that the price of oil has actually been falling. The price of a barrel of US light crude fell to $91.33 after trading. It had, in recent weeks, reached heights of over $100 a barrel.

The cause of this is prediction of an impending US recession which would decrease the demand for oil.

The isn’t necessarily great news for the consumer as while the price may fall, a recession may hamper general affordability making oil based products no easier to purchase.

US President George W. Bush has been calling on OPEC to boost production to reduce some of the potential impact of still-high oil prices on the global economy.

Whether there will be any further falls is open to discussion as some investors are now turning to the oil market as a hedge against the weakening US dollar. Such investment may inflate the price of oil.

The BBC has reported this evening that the government’s preferred method of nationalisation for troubled bank Northern Rock, should that course of action be taken, would be by an act of parliament rather than a traditional buy out.

Sources within the government have been reported to have said that nationalisation is now highly probable and a decision could be made within days.

Earlier, a meeting of shareholders voted in favour of the Rock’s board retaining control for any private rescue package although the chances of any such rescue package are now apparently remote. The shareholders are trying to recover some of their investments but the government has indicated that they will only have obligation to depositors and the taxpayer.

The government hopes to salvage some of the £55 billion pounds by which the British taxpayer is now exposed to Northern Rock.

Photo Credit: Alex Gunningham cc-by-2.0

EDF Energy (British subsidiary of Électricité de France) has announced that it will be increased the price of gas and electricity to it’s 5.5 million UK customers from Friday (18 Jan).

• The Electricity Price will increase by 7.9%
• The Gas Price will increase by 12.9%

According to the BBC, EDF are citing the “soaring cost” of wholesale energy for the increase in prices.This comes on a day when many will probably be wondering how the ONS has calculated that UK inflation is still only 2.1%. (0.1% above target) Well, obviously this increase hasn’t been factored in yet and the NPower increase of last week is also yet to filter through.

There is also an aberration caused by the rather complex method with which CPI is calculated. Rest assured the credibility of the CPI figure should be restored soon as it rises to reflect the very real, very large inflationary pressures being experienced by the UK economy.

On the upside, EDF is moving ahead with it’s plans for the UK’s new generation of Nuclear power plants.