LHR - Both runways closed due to incident

radar0976

Both runways currently closed at Heathrow due to BA A319 emergency landing at approx 9am. Safely evacuated. No injuries reported.

stopthepanic

http://news.sky.com/story/1095039/heathrow-shut-plane-on-fire-over-london

paulhardman

Seems to be conflicting information - one engine cowling apparently missing whilst in flight, then the other engine caught fire on the way back to Heathrow. Emergency landing on 27R, 27L now re-open.

roundymac

It's being touted as a bird strike. Plane had just taken off for Oslo when it requested an immediate return.

murphym7

paulhardman wrote: »

Seems to be conflicting information - one engine cowling apparently missing whilst in flight, then the other engine caught fire on the way back to Heathrow. Emergency landing on 27R, 27L now re-open.

Watching Sky news there now, passenger picture of Port side engine cowling lifted in flight. Also fire confrimed on Starbord side engine. Very strange.

novarock

A319, was it one of the A319s leased by Aer Lingus?

gramar

Why would they shut the airport down once the plane has landed safety?
Could they not tow it to a safe area and allow other flights to land and take off without causing so much disruption?

Jhcx

why both runways surely only one was affected ?

dukedalton

novarock wrote: »

A319, was it one of the A319s leased by Aer Lingus?

Aer Lingus haven't leased any A319s to BA.

They have three A320s on lease to Virgin.

murphym7

gramar wrote: »

Why would they shut the airport down once the plane has landed safety?
Could they not tow it to a safe area and allow other flights to land and take off without causing so much disruption?

Plane was evacuated using the slides and fire appliances were spraying foam on the starboard engine. There was no towing this plane at that time. I presume it is a protocol practiced and implemented. Hard to know in the heat of the moment how serious it is maybe? Better to err on the side of caution I would have thought.

radar0976

gramar wrote: »

Why would they shut the airport down once the plane has landed safety?
Could they not tow it to a safe area and allow other flights to land and take off without causing so much disruption?

With an engine on fire all they would be thinking about would be getting on the ground, stopping and evacuating the aircraft ASAP. Disruption is totally irrelevant in this sort of situation. Saving lives is the priority.

Mr Benevolent

Jhcx wrote: »

why both runways surely only one was affected ?

Probably debris on both runways.

McWotever

Fire service were attending the aircraft in distress and therefore not available to attend another incident should something happen another aircraft on the other runway, so effectively the airport is closed.

I'm open to correction but I think LHR has to provide CAT10 fire cover for it to remain operational.

murphym7

Its being towed away there now, that runway should be open soon.

Storm 10

Interesting on pprune, it appears one engine has damage with missing panels and damage can be seen in pics there, and also the other engine had a fire and also has panels missing.

Link: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/515531-incident-heathrow.html

urajoke

Most likely hit a flock of birds. Initially all AFRS units will attend in case of major fire that will quickly step back as things unfold and units can return to cover other aircraft, this is quite normal.

If this had been a major incident they would have diverted straight in to Luton or Stansted or anywhere available. Obviously the no 1 was producing enough power and was stable enough to return to Heathrow.

Suasdaguna1

It grits me that the general populas deem pilots as glorified bus drivers.

Look what this crew did today......what appears to be double engine trouble and could have been another "sully" event.

I take my hat off to the crew for getting that ship safely back on terra firma.

Well done.

Tenger

Looking at some footage on BBC.
-Both engine cowlings were missing inbound to LHR.
-On the ground pax were evacuated on the left hand side. (as in I can't see slides on the others side, I could well be wrong)
-Pilot noted to have turned aircraft into the wind to ensure any flame not blown onto fuselage.
-Pics online show burn marks on the right hand engine.

?Perhaps the engine fire on #2 caused a surge that affected #1 as well? Not sure how the cowling would be popped?
?Multiple birdstrike incident, damaging #1 and causing a fire in #2?

eurofoxy

well done to the pilots, they proved their worth today, i was however shocked to see passengers with hand luggage on them after coming down the slides and 2 fire tenders pouring water on the engine that was still smouldering....

shamwari

This might be worthy of s seperate thread in itself but it looks like there's another incident underway in British Airspace

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22658979

adamski8

Suasdaguna1 wrote: »

It grits me that the general populas deem pilots as glorified bus drivers.

Look what this crew did today......what appears to be double engine trouble and could have been another "sully" event.

I take my hat off to the crew for getting that ship safely back on terra firma.

Well done.

Do they? Anyone i know of holds them in high regard. Are you sure you arent listening too much to MOL?

kona

Those v2500 engine cowls are a bitch to close compared to cfm56, they may not have been closed correctley.

A320

kona wrote: »

Those v2500 engine cowls are a bitch to close compared to cfm56, they may not have been closed correctley.

V2500'S Are sh1te to work on,state of the wire looms and routing,amateur at best,were v2500s fitted to this?

Lustrum

Tenger wrote: »

?Perhaps the engine fire on #2 caused a surge that affected #1 as well? ......

Can someone explain how this would happen? Would it be as a result of disrupted fuel flow if one engine is being shut down or what is it? Is it a regular occurence, as it seems it is a design fault if this can happen.


Also, I'm pretty sure Suasdaguna isn't paying too much attention to MO'L, considering (as far as I'm aware) he spends his time up the front of a Shamrock!

smurfjed

Can someone explain how this would happen?

I don't fly the A320, but I would have thought that with independent fuel systems, the actions of one engine wont affect the other.

smurfjed

Tenger

I only mentioned it as it was cited as a factor on the A.net discussion. Not sure if it is plausible.

Irish Steve

There are several possibles here, and right now, unfortunately, a bird strike is some way down the list, it's looking a lot more like the cowls were not correctly secured for some reason, and then were torn off the airframe at some stage, one of them clearly during departure, as ATC notified the aircraft that they had noticed something untoward.

The other aspect is that given the route they took to get back to LHR, if it had been internal damage to the engines that caused the problems, they would have opted for an emergency landing at possibly Luton or Stansted, or come back to LHR much more rapidly than via the route they did.

What may be a factor that will be of significant interest to the Accident investigators is that there appears to have been no indication on the flight deck of the fire issue with the starboard engine, or if there was, it was not reported as such, which may well be down to the possibility that the airflow over the fire loops on the outside of the engine may have been disrupted significantly by the additional airflow being caused by the absent cowlings.

The closure of both runways will indeed be down to the attention of the fire service to the emergency aircraft, while the emergency was under way, the fire service would have been unable to provide the correct response both time and equipment wise to the other runway or locations on the airport, so closure was the only option. The second runway was open again very quickly, and the A319 was removed remarkably quickly, given that the AAIB would have wanted certain things checked and secured before it was moved off the runway, for evidential reasons.

BA have been incredibly fortunate, there have been 2 incidents at LHR in recent years, and both have been managed without loss of life, and in both cases, it would have been very easy for the outcome to have been very different.

The eventual report of the AAIB will for sure make very interesting reading.

homerjay2005

isnt 26 minutes a very long time to get back on the ground? surely they would look for the quickest possible landing incase the first got worse?

well done to the pilots though, amazing job.

Tenger

homerjay2005 wrote: »

isnt 26 minutes a very long time to get back on the ground? surely they would look for the quickest possible landing incase the first got worse?

I have read suggestions that as it wasn't a time critical emergency incident the pilots decided to return to LHR. A time critical descent would have seen them landing into Stanstead perhaps?

cuterob

kona wrote: »

Those v2500 engine cowls are a bitch to close compared to cfm56, they may not have been closed correctley.

turns out you were right http://news.sky.com/story/1097869/ba-flight-fire-engine-doors-left-unlatched

kona

cuterob wrote: »

turns out you were right http://news.sky.com/story/1097869/ba-flight-fire-engine-doors-left-unlatched

They will have to do something with those engines, the amount of people who missed that , a very obvious/basic part of any check or transit. Lots for every engineer/pilot to learn from.

CaptainSkidmark

So whats the protocol now for the employee in question? Tar and Feather or hung drawn and quartered?

Foggy43

It is not as straight forward as that. There are a minumum of two engineers involved and which ever one of the flight crew who did the transit check.

Suasdaguna1

Yeap string the lot of the up. It's is utterly disgraceful that latches on both engines were not correctly secured. Granted I appreciate the v2500 engine is a cow to get under to confirm closure but what needs to be done should be done.....a lot of passenger and crew were exposed to a lot of danger that day.

So someone is accountable, there paid a lot of money to be accountable and a pat on the back is not good enough.

If we screw up at the pointy bit, we too get the bullet in the temple.

Suasdaguna1

Foggy43 wrote: »

It is not as straight forward as that. There are a minumum of two engineers involved and which ever one of the flight crew who did the transit check.

Naw re the flight crew getting blitzed.....their job is to ensure that no obvious bits are loose. The cowls were closed but the latches were not secured, latches secured would be the engineers domain.....

Foggy43

I'm afraid as always this incident resulted as they always do. There was a chain of events during that morning and the night before. The investigation is on going. It is a case of why this could happen. I'm sure Human Factors will play a major contributor to this.

kona

Suasdaguna1 wrote: »

Naw re the flight crew getting blitzed.....their job is to ensure that no obvious bits are loose. The cowls were closed but the latches were not secured, latches secured would be the engineers domain.....

Sorry but this is bollix.

Suasdaguna1

kona wrote: »

Sorry but this is bollix.

Do you know the v2500's? Catches are in a place that would require you on your hands and knees to inspect same to confirm closure. They are a weak link with this engine apart from its slow starts. Go see what David learmount said about the exact same thing on sky this evening......he was talking b@llix too!

A walk around for a pilot is not an engineers inspection and far from it.

kona

Suasdaguna1 wrote: »

Do you know the v2500's? Catches are in a place that would require you on your hands and knees to inspect same to confirm closure. They are a weak link with this engine apart from its slow starts. Go see what David learmount said about the exact same thing on sky this evening......he was talking b@llix too!

A walk around for a pilot is not an engineers inspection and far from it.

Well yea I am, are you a pilot? To have that attitude is a bit poor tbh. Get on your knees and check. Bet those pilots wish they did.

A transit done properly would have prevented this incident. Especially considering how these engines have history of this happening. The pilots are at fault here too, not as much as engineering tho.

Suasdaguna1

kona wrote: »

Well yea I am, are you a pilot? To have that attitude is a bit poor tbh. Get on your knees and check. Bet those pilots wish they did.

A transit done properly would have prevented this incident. Especially considering how these engines have history of this happening. The pilots are at fault here too, not as much as engineering tho.

You don't get it do you? Two pilots don't do the walk around firstly, 2nd it was at a base so they didn't sign off the transit check in the log, the engineers did.

The bottom line is the v2500 cowls are going to have be redesigned so are easily visbile without going into contortions to inspect same.

Re my atitude and am I a pilot....I ain't playing trolling ping pong if that's what you want.

kona

Suasdaguna1 wrote: »

The bottom line is the v2500 cowls are going to have be redesigned so are easily visbile without going into contortions to inspect same.

Your right here.

Bessarion

Foggy43 wrote: »

It is not as straight forward as that. There are a minumum of two engineers involved and which ever one of the flight crew who did the transit check.

I expect that walkaround procedures may well be altered in the future....

....perhaps a crosscheck from a 2nd person on latches or indeed a redesign to allow quick visual inspection. Procedures are there to reduce the threat of human error. This incident will be a learning experience for airline operation, thankfully without a human cost as is usually the case.

Didn't that happen with the DC-10 cargo door many years ago...happened after an unlocked door caused a decompression.

pclancy

Why dont they just use some kind of red or yellow flag/streamer that says in bold letters "remove before flight" attached to these obviously notorious catches?

Seems like everyone knew about this and it was something waiting to happen.