Given the extensive damage to the aircraft caused by the cowls detaching, as reported in the AAIB bulletin, it was nothing short of a miracle that G-EUOE made it back to LHR.
could easily have been of the most serious kind with serious loss of life to PAX, aircrew and on the ground
Sorry - disagree. In flying / structural terms none of the damage seems relevant apart from the RH engine issue(s).
The only way to look at this is as a fundamental failure of processes and procedures of both BA maintenance and crew walkaround
Maybe, but equally a failing in the 31 other airlines / crews / training this has occured to/in.
Every time I hear the phrase "lessons will be learned" I wince. This type of incident had happened no less than 32 times up to July last year and Airbus made it clear then that latches should be checked carefully. How often does it have to happen for appropriate steps to be taken to prevent it?
Ahh, we agree. I suspect it has just been demonstrated yet again that HF is not going to solve this problem. At best it will reduce the probability of occurance, maybe only temporarily. I suspect, and hope, and get the feeling the AAIB are tending towards, this needs to be the "wake up" call for a design change/tweak to reinforce the HF side.