Whilst I wasn't involved in yesterday afternoon's little problem at Heathrow, I have read the Watch log. From what I can gather, the information available to the captain suggested there would be no problem getting off the runway and so BA/ HAL made no arrangements for a tug. When subsequently the a/c couldn't vacate there was a 20 minute delay waiting for one to arrive, with obvious implications for Heathrow during the busy evening peak. (The delay got to 33 minutes).
Being a talker not a driver I am not up to speed on the technical aspects of hydraulic failures but I was wondering if it wouldn't be wiser for us to prepare a tug as a matter of course, just in case the unforseen happens? Or is that considered a waste of resources? When balanced against a loss of our overstretched runway capacity I would have thought it reasonable.
Perhaps somebody might suggest that to BA ops.?
Point 4