I hang my head in sadness. To think that the Company that I was once proud to work for should continue to allow this sort of avoidable accident to still happen. There has been a drip-feed of these incidents over the years at LHR - why aren't the lessons being learned? Why LHR and not other aerodromes which handle more traffic per runway?
Heathrow's reputation is more or less rock-bottom these days.
I would seriously suggest that it's time to close the doors on the place and develop a proper 21st Century airport for London elsewhere. The fundamental problem is that the basic layout was designed in 1946 for a/c with half the current span and a quarter of the weight of present designs. The site simply isn't big enough and don't get me started on the infrastructure. The main road to the airport from the South goes over a railway bridge which was built 150 years ago for horse & cart and hasn't been widened since!
As to the loss of a wingtip on a 744, I once witnessed a BA 744 arriving at LGW with one winglet missing. It had had a tangle with another a/c at Caracas and following removal of the stub the a/c had dispatched with one winglet. Apparently it didn't make enough difference to the fuel burn to make any adjustments necessary. I expect there's a difference in MEL for an outstation departure compared with base, on the basis that another a/c would be available and that the a/c can be fixed at LHR but not CCS.
I just can't believe that the pax were held on board for 2.5 hrs, as reported. Did it really take Airfield Ops/BA that long to organise coaches???
TheOddOne