BA085 21st April, Engine Failure?
I was on this flight from Heathrow to Vancouver (747-400) and we had an engine failure or compressor stall event on take off. The aircraft was very close to take off speed, having already rotated, when there were 2 or 3 loud bangs from the stbd outer engine accompanied by flames out of the tailpipe. The pilot closed all the throttles- no reverse thrust was used, and braked very hard to a standstill. Quite a lot of fire engines appeared almost instantaneously and we were escorted back to the terminal. No further technical information was given other than to say that the brakes had been cooked. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this incident, was it a bird strike, compressor stall caused by the strong crosswinds that day or something else? We subsequently left 5 hours later on a replacement aircraft.