British Airways plane catches fire after co-pilot moved lever in the wrong direction
A British Airways flight bound for Vancouver was forced to abort takeoff at high speed after the co-pilot confused his left and right.
The incident occurred in June last year at London’s Gatwick Airport and caused the aircraft’s brakes to catch fire, reported BBC News.
Source: British Airways. Photo for illustration purposes only.
British Airways co-pilot ‘unintentionally’ moved lever to his left
An investigation report on the incident was released by the United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) on Thursday (8 May).
It said that just as the aircraft was about to take off on 28 June 2024, the co-pilot was supposed to move a lever to his right.
However, he “unintentionally” moved the lever to his left instead.
British Airways plane makes emergency stop, fire erupts on landing gear
The error reduced the Boeing 777 aircraft’s thrust when it needed maximum engine power for takeoff.
This forced the plane to make an emergency stop on the runway at high speed.
While the plane “stopped some distance before the end of the runway”, airport firefighting crews had to extinguish a fire on the right main landing gear.
Source: Air Accidents Investigation Branch
Airport closes temporarily, but all crew & passengers unharmed
Following the incident, Gatwick Airport temporarily suspended runway operations for about 50 minutes.
This caused at least 16 inbound flights to be diverted and 23 flights to be cancelled before the airport resumed normal operations.
Source: Johannes Heel on Unsplash
Thankfully, all 13 crew members and 334 passengers on the flight were unharmed, though thousands of travellers had their plans disrupted.
Co-pilot expresses ‘surprise’, unable to explain his mistake
The report noted that the co-pilot, who had more than 6,100 hours of flight experience, had just returned to flying after a two-week break and was “feeling fine” on the day of the incident.
Thus, he had “expressed surprise” over the mistake and could not explain how it happened.
All his commercial flying had been in the right-hand seat, the report also noted.
A British Airways spokesperson said safety is always its “highest priority”, noting that the pilots brought the aircraft to a safe stop.
Also read: Malaysia Airlines flight forced to turn back after engine catches fire mid-air
Malaysia Airlines flight forced to turn back after engine catches fire mid-air
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Featured image adapted from British Airways. Photo for illustration purposes only.
