Experts mystified by Heathrow crash landing

British aviation experts are mystified as to how a modern aircraft operated by a top international airline came so close to disaster when flying into one of the best-equipped airports in the world.

All aspects of the incident involving the British Airways’ Boeing 777 will be thoroughly probed by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).

However, observers, lacking information from the authorities to guide their assessment, were puzzled as to how the near-catastrophe could have happened.

Expert Julian Bray said it appeared the plane “suffered a very late technical incident which caused a catastrophic total loss of power in one or more engines”.

He said: “It would appear that as this was on the southern 27L runway near the water reservoir and its ever-changing large flock of Canada geese, that a sudden bird strike may provide the answer.”

David Kaminski-Morrow, of internet news service Air Transport Intelligence, said: “Investigators ought to be able to get to the bottom of this as they can at least talk to everyone involved as this was a non-fatal accident with everyone pretty much being able to walk away.”

He went on: “Landings and take-offs are the two key parts of a flight, with take-offs testing the plane’s systems and landings examining the pilots’ abilities.

“Take-off and landing incidents tend not to be the result of technical problems.”

Air Transport Intelligence editor Kieran Daly said there was no “obvious explanation” for what happened.

He said: “The whole thing is pretty much a mystery. Any explanation is incredible. Almost certainly they must have lost all or virtually all their engine power because there’s no other explanation why this aircraft would fail to reach the runway.

“There are only a small number of potential reasons that could cause both engines to fail. You have to look at the weather, but it wasn’t very spectacular.

“Then you think about birdstrike, but it is extremely rare that that happens even to one engine, never mind both. That leaves fuel starvation, running out of fuel, but that’s incredible as well.

“We know of examples involving other airlines where this has happened, but it is very rare. There was once an error over how much fuel was put on a certain plane – it managed to glide into a field and everybody survived.

“Then there was the case of a plane which flew with its landing gear down after the gear would not retract, and they ran out of fuel, crashing with some injuries.

“Then there was another incident where a pilot ran out of fuel over the Atlantic because of a fuel leak, and managed to put down safely in the Azores, with nobody hurt.

“There have been instances where aircraft have arrived at Heathrow low on fuel, but you wouldn’t expect an experienced British Airways pilot to be in that situation.”

The investigators will gather data from the plane’s flight data recorder and from the cockpit voice recorder. They will talk to the pilots, passengers and air traffic controllers as well as go over the plane’s maintenance record.

From all this they should be able to work out when, or if, the plane got into trouble as it approached Heathrow and what happened in those vital few seconds as the crew struggled to bring the plane down.

The flight data recorder will give investigators chapter and verse on the state of all the instruments in those key moments. It will indicate whether the pilots, as is usual with crews coming in to Heathrow, were using the instrument landing system (ILS) approach where a laser beam is followed to help the crew land.

The cockpit voice recorder is a record of the communication between the pilots and any conversations the cockpit crew have had with air traffic control.

They will also look at weather conditions. There were reports from eye witnesses of an ultra-low approach and of the plane banking heavily while coming in.

There were also reports of abnormal engine sounds. All this will be taken into account.

A plane such as the Boeing 777 in the hands of an airline with the reputation of BA would be extremely well maintained and the AAIB would be looking at all maintenance records.