View Full Version : U2 aircraft emergency
This morning, U2's private BAe146 emergency landing after takeoff at EGCC...
Cooly dealt with by flight crew, and by reports the cabin crew, who put out the oven fire...
Not known whether Bono and the boys were on board...
Seemed efficiently dealt with. Well done all.
:cool:
leonbrumsack
4th Jul 2005, 15:01
The aircraft belongs to Flightline. I think it's G-BPNT.
Callsign was "Qantas 158"
:)
Well, first I thought this was about Easyjet.
Then I thought it was about Gary Powers.
But it turns out to have been a rock group (Matter of opinion). :)
Wycombe
4th Jul 2005, 15:44
Err, a bloody good rock group, at least in my opinion. Still producing great stuff more than 20 years on.
More than proved it at Live8 IMHO.
'NT has had an interesting life - used to do Air Tours
around Europe, N Africa and Middle East in her Palmair days, I believe
Has more recently been seen in "Robbie Williams" colours also.
Ms Spurtle
4th Jul 2005, 16:15
"It's such a beautiful may-day" plays guitar
(sorry) :D
I think the U2 tour is finished and the a/c was merely substituted to the QF shuttle. It must have been crew meals as I was told that there is no meal service. I think this example is a 42 seater.
"Paper on sandwich wrappers".
Quote.
:ooh:
newswatcher
5th Jul 2005, 16:11
If they were on board, they must have been to "the edge" and back!
HZ123, not nearly finished, here (http://www.u2.com/tourinfo/) are the dates.
bn2a, "sandwich wrapper", is that a musical term?
Haven't you heard of MC Chicken Sandwich??
:p
brain fade
5th Jul 2005, 23:18
I thought you meant an emergency involving a U-2. Instead you meant a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
jack146
12th Jul 2005, 14:06
Well.. I was one of the cabin crew members on this flight,and after hearing the incident made pprune within hours of it happening,I couldn`t resist checking it out! So to put rumours straight.. Yes G-BPNT,yes Flightline,Yes we have been flying U2 around on their european tour on it,yes oven fire. This particular day however we were doing a qantas flight MAN-LHR as the band had a day off. for obvious reasons am not going into the details, but it was not due to the wrappers on the pax food we had to heat up!
And without a doubt all the crew cooly and professionly handled the situation!!!:cool:
Wing Root
12th Jul 2005, 15:16
This intrigues me.
I had previously not heard of Qantas needing to have an aircraft fly between MAN and LHR. I was under the impression that this was done with a BA code share or some such?
Can someone give a quick explanation of what the deal is and how it came to be that Bono’s 146 was used?
Wycombe
12th Jul 2005, 21:54
Flightline have operated the route for QF for a while now, with 146. They have also been operating a 146 for U2 during their recent tour. Guess the aircraft in question was able to fulfill both roles.
Can someone give a quick explanation of what the deal is and how it came to be that Bono’s 146 was used?
Sure. Qantas "bought" some slots at Heathrow for £multi-m each and would like them for more Oz flights but can't get the right aircraft and/or other permissions yet.
Heathrow slots cannot be "bought" of course, though there are ways round this, but if you do not use them they are lost on a "use it or lose it" basis.
Enter someone (it is Flightline but could have been others) who have happened to be contracted to run a useless operation to fill the slots on behalf of QF to keep them used each day. The flights are not even conveniently timed for connections at LHR to QF manstream flights. QF continues to codeshare with BA as well on MAN-LHR, which carries the bulk of the connecting passengers, with more convenient times too.
Obviously an old 146 is about as cheap as it gets per flying hour. Presume the flight has to be something QF have licences for, hence Manchester.
As you roll round and round the LAM hold think of the slots (2 in, 2 out daily) wasted in this way to meet some arcane rules.
Wonder what their load factors are.
Wing Root
13th Jul 2005, 06:52
WHBM,
Excellent reply. Thanks for the info!
:ok:
Jack146,
Was only going by what the pilot said on the radio...
Pretty neat visual circuit flown back to 24L...!
Was funny watching Hugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew et al filing out of the firestation with blue's flashing!!
Glad all ended OK!!!
:)