Details as sent to FAA:
This is to report a worrying occurrence at Boston, on December 2nd.
Iberia flight 6166, flying to Madrid, using an Airbus A340, apparently took off with substantial wing contamination due to snow. The crew were notified of the contamination a number of times, by control and by a BA crewmember in an adjacent aircraft who could see the contamination. The IB crew refused de-icing. All other departing flights at BOS at that time were accepting de-icing.
Please could you look into this. It seems that the IB6166 crew and passengers were lucky - in that there was sufficient lift available from the impaired wings, there was no windshear, no engine failure, no bird ingestion or runway incursion. The IB crew had no way of knowing that all these conditions would apply.
The BA pilot has posted details of this occurrence at
www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=302971 , where interesting comments from fellow aircrew can also be found.
I sent this after reviewing the postings to this thread and concluding that the basic safety issue has received strong support. The points of contention have mainly been the nature of LTD's message to IB6166 and the correctness of identifying the flight here.
Taking off with contaminated wings is dangerous. In this specific case, I also note from this thread that it is against Iberia SOPs and Airbus instructions to pilots.
If the FAA should find my message to be unworthy of action on their part, they are entirely free to forget it.