BBC News - 2008 BA Boeing 777 Heathrow crash: Air traffic control

Agreed. Perhaps more importantly, these safety recommendations were made 18months ago, one as "take immediate action".

So, what have the regulatory authorities done ?

1. nothing
2. considered and decided the risk is too low / the cost is too high to be bothered doing anything
3. started research program

I'd bet on 1 or maybe 2 - and that isn't the fault of the AAIB. They don't (I believe) have remit or funding to go investigating this phenomenon beyond this accident circustances.

Listened to the transcripts on sky, All voice communication seems calm, cool, and collected, no panic, no hysterics just what you would expect. It seemed some good reporting, up until the reporter started with " if it had come down moments earlier, it would have landed on buildings ect " why do they do this, whats the point, if it had come down on the moon there would have had a problem invesigating the cause. We don't need to hear about if's, they did not happen. The crew and tower came across as true professionals, the reporter didn't.

ArthurR,

Forgive me, you don't 'listen' to a transcript, you 'read' it. You 'listen' to a recording of the communications.

And the recording/s mentioned a couple of posts above by Akrapovic, on the BBC website, have now been removed, today (NATS copyright stuff again?).

OK you are correct, I listened to the recordings on Sky news.

Omission's definitions:

• a mistake resulting from neglect
• intentional or unintentional failure to act that may impose criminal liability if a duty to act under the circumstances is specified by law.
• a failure to carry out a duty or to fulfill an act.
• the act, fact, or state of leaving something out or failing to do something esp. that is required by duty, procedure, or law

It's quite ambiguous to qualify an act as an omission in the report without further analysis.

S.F.L.Y.,
The statements referred to were almost certainly gleaned from post-accident interviews with the pilot concerned. The AAIB aren't going to publish word-for-word stuff like that, are they?

The link to the Heathrow Tower feed before, during and after the event (2 mins 31 secs in all) worked a moment ago and credits NATS with copyright.

SFLY

You seem disappointed that the report fails to criticise the flight crew in any way. Maybe there is a reason for this? They were faced with an unrecoverable situation at 500 agl. The PF disconnecting the autopilot or not had 1/40th of all to do with the eventual outcome. None of what happened can be attributed to crew error. The very best outcome they could have achieved from the point at which they realised they had a problem was to clear the airfield perimeter and hit the ground in an area of clearway with a high rate of descent. Which is exactly what they achieved. The AAIB report would have clearly stated any failure on their part had this been the case. The report didn't.

Maybe you should give it a rest? Just a suggestion

Interesting interview with the pilot on BBC

Rudder,
you are right. We've had 63,072,000 secs, approx., to figure out what to do. The pilots had circa 35 sec.s to figure out what to do.

As PB said in his BBC interview, he would now like to have another 20 years flying. We should be helping him do this, not sniping.

AO

I think it is about time the moderators did some "moderating".
S.F.L.Y. is like a stuck record, I really wish someone would push the "eject" button.
If he or she has no "real" appreciation of what this crew achieved in real time I suggest listening repeatedly to the ATC tape and noting how long passed between the landing clearance and the mayday, followed almost instantly by ATC transmitting that the aircraft had crashed.
It was all over in an instant, and this individual just refuses to ackowledge this and continues to incessantly harp on & on about what they "should have done"
I don't believe I am a minority of one , when I say "enough" !

Armchair expert of the most tedious type.

The statements I was referring to are statements from the report. CVR transcriptions aren't uncommon in such reports and I only regret that this time it is missing.

You are certainly not a minority but it doesn't mean I can't discuss about what is written in this report... Why should I be banned for quoting a specific statement of the official report?

It clearly says in black and white that the FO omitted to disconnect the AP, which is quite different from a conscious decision to keep it engaged. There's a clear difference between the words "omitted" and "decided". Why can't I address the lack of further details when such a meaningful word is deliberately being used? I'm not bringing in any personal theory, I'm just stating what the AAIB released, period.

The reports also mentions that this "omission" resulted in low speed/low energy situation which didn't allow any pre-impact flare, causing a high vertical velocity impact (which btw caused most of the aircraft's damages). According to the report that was quite a costly omission.

The BEA's statement about the "omitted" concorde's spacer isn't neither leading to deeper analysis...

Captain still gets the credit and headlines

Marginly off topic from someone who doesn't know any better but what struck me having just listened to the ATC recording was how very professional and calm the controller was in dealing with the whole thing!

Following up on what PinmyD has just written, can I ask any Heathrow ATCOs who are PPRUNE members whether any official recognition was given to the staff involved (particularly the male controller principally featured)? This was, after all, a job well-done.

I know it could be claimed that the staff were only doing their job but it seems to me that, for instance, many/most of the honours dished out in HM's name go to people for just doing their job or hobby. I'm not suggesting an OBE for the controller (although we see some, arguably, less-deserving cases each new year/birthday)!

SFS

Put him on your ignore list. I have.

Did I hear correctly that the Captain is unemployed?

Like many in here, I had hoped that S.F.L.Y would shut the up once the AAIB official report was published. Should have known better of course.

Unique incident... neither expected nor trained for. Carried on flying the aircraft right down to the ground and (quite correctly) raised the flaps one stage to achieve a shallower glide.

Top marks to the crew. No marks to the armchair "expert".

Knob

Yep, but by choice, having chosen voluntary redundancy, and confirmed earlier in this thread by the gentleman himself.

As a humerous aside, I love the part in the report where it states several pax took personal belongings during evacuation, and one deluded individual even shimmied back up the slide AFTER having evacuated to retrieve some item from the aircraft.

I am sure the manufacturer of whatever it was would love to hear about it, what an idea for an ad campaign

Only those of us above a certain age would understand when I say " all because the lady loves milk tray "