Where Was the Aircraft When Fuelled?
In the discussion about possible fuel contamination, whether from heavier fuel components (e.g. diesel), or water, no-one seems to have raised what to me is one of the biggest unknowns, at least by the arm-chair investigators:
Where at PEK was the aircraft when it was re-fuelled prior to the PEK-LHR sector?
If the aircraft was on a much-used stand, and other long-haul aircraft had been fuelled before it, and were fuelled subsequent to it, then it seems unlikely that BA038 would have been the only aircraft to have received off-spec fuel, and the other aircraft might (but only might), have experienced difficulties, notwithstanding that BA038 possibly had the longest and coldest soak, and notwithstanding that if ‘it’ had all happened three minutes later, then the aircraft would have been safely on the ground.
But if the aircraft was on a more remote stand, perhaps one fed by a ‘dead leg’ of the hydrant system, or if the aircraft was on a stand where the hydrant system was, or had been, under maintenance, or if the aircraft was fuelled by bowsers (more than one, I imagine, for a long haul), then the chances that it received suspicious fuel must be higher.
Part of the Quality Assurance system for Jet is that not only are samples taken and tested at the refinery whence the fuel originated, but that samples are taken and tested from the tank farm at the airfield, and samples are taken and tested from the hydrant systems and bowsers. All these samples have to be retained for specified periods (basically, until it can be certain that all the batch of fuel has been consumed, plus quite bit more), AND the laboratory where these tests are done also is regularly checked to ensure that the correct testing methods (for Jet, normally ASTM, or IP), are used, and the results that any particular laboratory obtains are correlated with other laboratories in ‘round robins’ to ensure consistency within the statistically determined accuracy of the methods.
Let us hope that the retained samples for the fuel supplied to this particular aircraft were correctly taken, were correctly identified and retained, and that any further testing has been done in an accredited laboratory under the supervision of a third party inspector.
One other thought… accidents are very rarely the result of a single cock-up, but the consequence of a chain of events that lead to an improbable, but sadly unforeseen, event. It seems unlikely that BA038’s slightly premature arrival on 27L was the result of a single factor.