Off Topic:
This is what I truly despise about PPRuNe. In practically every single 'rumour & news' thread, some moron always posts something utterly unrelated to the main topic which results in other morons discussing it and thus, irrelevant discussions are created. Why are people discussing the legal issues with CVR tapes? Is this thread about that? No. So shut the hell up and go discuss this somewhere else. This thread is about the BA777 crash in January 2008 (yes, nothing gets past me), so only post relevant messages about the topic in hand. Yapping on about something so unimportant and unnecessary to the main topic is just ruining the discussion.
On Topic:
I have listened to the ATC tape and it appears that two mistakes were made by captain Burkill (which he has admitted and explained in his blog). Speedbird 95 was his callsign for his next flight (instead of his current flight's callsign, Speedbird 38) and his evacuation announcement to ATC (instead of transmitting it over the cabin PA system). Though both mistakes didn't really make any difference to the outcome of this accident, these were the only mistakes by the crew that we know of so far but we should remember the enormous stresses that they were put under and how little time they had to react to the dreadful situation that they ended up in.
Splendid job to the captain (for retracting the flaps), the first officer (for preventing a stall), the cabin crew (for a speedy evacuation), the air traffic controller AND the emergency services.
I think the aftermath could have been handled so much better though by BA. Why were the crew placed into the media spotlight shortly after the accident? I think the decision to do this had a slightly negative effect on the crew and BA overall. Look at how US Airways managed captain Sullenberger and the crew of flight 1549 after the accident last January. That's possibly why captain Sullenberger is highly regarded as a key speaker for the aviation industry now by his fellow workers.
EDIT: Haha, oh yes! Thanks Cav (I always get the number of years between Speedbird and Cactus mixed up).
Last edited by Joshilini; 27th December 2009 at 11:38.