After Engine Blew, Deciding to Fly On 'As Far as We Can'

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

After Engine Blew, Deciding to Fly On 'As Far as We Can'
Pilot-Tower Tapes Flesh Out 747 Incident That Triggered A Controversy Over Safety
September 23, 2006; Page A1
By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

A few seconds after a fully loaded British Airways 747 took off from Los Angeles on its way to London last year, one of its four engines erupted in a spectacular nighttime burst of flame. The fire burned out quickly, but the controversy has continued to smolder. An air-traffic controller watching the runways radioed a warning to British Airways Flight 268 and assumed the plane would quickly turn around. To controllers' surprise, the pilots checked with their company and then flew on, hoping to "get as far as we can," as the captain told the control tower. The jumbo jet ultimately traveled more than 5,000 miles with a dead engine before making an emergency landing in Manchester, England, as the crew worried about running out of fuel.

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 also focused renewed attention on an age-old issue in aviation -- safety versus economics. 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. The British Airways pilots' union questioned whether the EU compensation rules, only days old at the time, pressured airlines into pushing flights into risky situations. And in online discussions, pilots wondered if the three pilots might have been pressured into a risky flight to save the airline money.

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Flight 268 also set off a feud between U.S. and United Kingdom regulators over which nation's rules would apply. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, taking a different view of the incident than British regulators, opened its own investigation and then an enforcement action, charging British Airways with flying the jet in an "unairworthy condition." The FAA proposed a $25,000 fine. But last month, the FAA quietly dropped the matter rather than fight in court with British Airways and possibly U.K. regulators as well.

(snip)

Winds were less favorable than anticipated across the Atlantic, causing the jet to burn more fuel than predicted. In addition, the crew became alarmed that they might not be able to access the fuel in one of the four wing tanks. The captain declared an emergency and landed in Manchester. The British investigation later found he would have had enough fuel to make it to London. After the landing -- uneventful but for fire trucks on hand -- controversy arose among pilots. U.K. and U.S. agencies both opened investigations. Britain's learned that British Airways had flown 747s to distant destinations on three engines 15 times since April 2001. Indeed, the same plane, with a different No. 2 engine, lost the use of that replacement in flight two weeks later. This time it was at cruising altitude, en route from Singapore to London. Pilots saw an oil-pressure warning light and shut down the engine, flying for 11 more hours safely.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115896261643871721.html (subscription)

[Redstone]

1. The old rankings for USAIR pilots were, in order:

1) Passenger safety.
2) Fuel economy.
3) Schedule compliance.

Sounds like either BA doesn't share that philosphy, or things have changed a lot. Maybe both.

Redstone

[BlueCollar]

2. 3 functional engines instead of 4

As an airline mechanic I see no danger here.

If the aircraft only had 2 or 3 engines such as a 777/767/757 or MD11/DC10 or L-1011 the matter would be different IMO