Hi Guys,
This thread seems to have concentrated almost exclusively on fuel waxing.
It seems to me that any fuel low temperature issues will have been eliminated as the aircraft descended into warmer air. As has been correctly mentioned, Jet A-1 freezes at -47 deg centigrade. This temperature is found at around 26,000 feet on a day in UK winter, (say ISA -10). But from experience, even during flight over Greenland at FL 400, where the SAT can reach -73 deg centigrade; it still takes a couple of hours to reduce the outer wing tank (non-warmed fuel) to reduce to -47 deg centigrade. An aircraft in-bound to the UK from Japan/China would have passed below flight level 260 well north of LHR. By the time it was on short finals, the wing tank fuel would have warmed well above -47 deg centigrade, and in any case, the inner wing tank fuel (which feeds the engines) is warmed anyway, so fuel waxing would surely not have been an issue; the fuel in the BA 777 wing tanks would have been above waxing temperature.
This does not rule out fuel contamination, but a more likely scenario in my view must be the engine FADECS or the authothrust system. I wonder if a passenger, seeing they were just about to land decided to illegally switch on their mobile 'phone before landing and engine shut down, in order to pick up "vital" messages as soon as they were on the ground. Could the burst of digitally coded RF from such a 'phone have got into the engine FADECs and confused them into commanding idle thrust ?
Notwithstanding why the engines failed, I would like to record my respect for the Captain and F/O for getting the aircraft into the airport in severly testing circumstances. We practice many engine failure scenarios in the SIM every 6 months, but double engine failure when 600' above the ground has got to be the 'Daddy' of them all !! One is left with very few options in such a situatuion, the only one really available being trading speed for height, and I take my hat off to both the pilots for a really successful outcome.
PS What was all that nonsense in the gutter press about the pilot's lifestyle, holidays, and salary ?? How exactly was that relevant ?