Central locking overhead lockers when taking off and landing would have stopped passengers taking their luggage down the chutes.

Hitch, there would be 2 local controllers on duty ( one for each pair of runways ) and a supervisor. The supervisor would be calling approach control to cancel ops to 07L. The two planes she sent on a missed were switched to tower before they got the message. After that the Supervisor will talk with emergency services to see what reserve equipment was available. If all emergency equipment was dispatched to the event they would prepare to terminate all operations. KLAS has multiple Emergency buildings. Normally only one is called. If the first on scene Boss thinks its needed, all are dispatched and all operations halted.

There is one thing that professional pilots will always do in an emergency, irrespective of any background issues... they will do their job. Well done guys.

chillpill

I rather suspect given the header blindpew's comment about "crew" was in reference to the LGW cabin crew operating the flight.

In any event well done to all the crew

And if said fire was in an overhead compartment and the central locking couldn't unlock it because of burnt wires etc. so the crew could get to and extinguish the fire?

I just cannot believe the numbskulls coming off the plane with hand luggage and even 'ankle bashers' in tow which could have easily damaged the slides and added to the problems.

777 Fire
 

A testimony to the training and professionalism of flight and cabin crews.
I wish I could say that about those dummies who were sliding down the shoots with their luggage in hand.
The BA 777 that crash landed in Heathrow had a problem with the Spar Fuel Valve not closing. I wonder if the same problem reoccured in this case?
Fortunately, the crew and the aircraft are all alive and well and available for scrutiny by the investigators as to why the fuel was still pouring onto this fire!

I would take my hand luggage if possible.



Wallet, phone and passport are a big deal.

Wallet and passport can fit in your pockets. Everything else is less important than lives.

With the information available so far, this looks like 'text book' handling by all the crew and airport services.

Lives, including yours are much more important!!

Close up of the damage

http://image.airlineratings.com/arti...36925359_n.jpg

Cabin baggage
 

I have been out of the industry for a little while and for me now, as a paying pax, cabin baggage certainly in Australia is of real concern. I'm astounded by the amount and size of bags pax are allowed to board with.....no questions asked. When I was in the industry, some 5 years ago, cabin bag size and weight were a big issue for the airlines.
Now that appears to have gone by the way.

Airlines say safety is their priority but allowing large, heavy bags into overhead lockers surely presents safety issues as well as longer boarding and disembarking. It looks like airlines just can't make pax understand and so are now not enforcing their own policies:ugh:

On my last 2 recent flights, it would not have been pretty if we needed to make an emergency escape.
Glad everyone got out of this one. Well done to all::D:D

Correct. Mine are in my pocket - and I keep my shoes on until we are in the air!

Very well done to the crew... A good outcome to a nasty event.

A professional job by the crew and only a pity that the cabin crew are about to right royally shafted by the company.

Writeoff, no question about it.

Flightradar24 track indicates that BA2276 stopped approx 600 metres / 1800 ft from the start of the take-off run. Wonder what that suggests in terms of when the engine failure happened, and what speed the airplane reached?

EDIT: I found the speed/alt information graph for the flight, indicating that the airplane accelerated to a top speed of approx 78 kts at 23:12 UTC, before coming to a stop at 23:13.

The track suggests a rolling take-off, as the speed stays above 0 starting from 23:03, and is approx 20 kts just before the take-off run.

Don't know how accurate FR24 is at these low speeds, though.

Hand baggage
 

The industry needs to tackle the issue of baggage and ground evacuations. The evacuation demo required during certification is (AFAIK) completed with all the overheads closed. Opening an overhead could impede the escape route for someone else, having large bags at the doorways certainly slows things up, and bags have been responsible for serious pax injuries on and around the slides.

I have been advocating central locking of overheads for several years now, as it would provide the only guaranteed means of stopping pax retrieving bags. The argument about in-flight fires is valid, which is why I would link operation to the evacuation alarm. That way, you only lock the overheads on the ground when starting an evacuation. Alternatively, you could opt for locking at the 'crew to stations' point or as part of the SOP during an emergency return when an evacuation seems probable.

Too soon to speculate about the cause, but this event and QF32 raise a question.

Jet engine cowlings have shown to be able to contain the debris in case of a compressor blade/turbine blade failure at maximum RPM (as per certification reqs), so why were these two failures uncontained ?

The last time a BA 777 needed to send the pax down the slides was at LHR a few years back; icing in the heat exchanger of the Rolls Royce engines at a very critical moment on approach.

This time General Electric engines, apparently an older type that has been modified according to B-HKD, posted at 0.249 Sept. 9 on this thread. Some contributors have suggested if the takeoff had been continued the engine fire may have been more easily contained. And as engine fires do happen now and then, will this one be investigated as thoroughly as the RR problem?

Hand luggage? What is ok to take with you, and what isn't? A ladies handbag, of indeterminate size? A 'personal item' as defined by some airlines? A laptop? A small zip bag? An IATA approved cabin bag?

The airlines require you to take on board all your valuables (they refuse liability for valuables in checked bags), your documents and your medications.

They ask you to leave these behind in an evacuation with no knowledge of if or when they will be returned to you. Obviously returning property will not be a priority after an incident.

On the other hand there is no suggestion that in this incident the selfish bar-stewards actually caused any delays, damage or other problems during the evacuation. (I am not saying this didn't happen, just that we have not learned that it did). I can't recall mention of any problems with other recent evacuations.

Is this really a problem?

I know nothing, same as everyone else here.

A blade failure should be contained. A disk failure cannot be contained.

Looking at the close-up of the damage, my first reaction would undoubtedly get me moderated for language. My second reaction is that it's a very good thing indeed they didn't have to take that into the air...

Note the pressure plugs on the tyres haven't burst, suggesting there wasn't a brake fire as well?

mary

All very well in theory...perhaps...maybe....... but I do hope no-one is suggesting taking a fire (any fire) into the air from below V1.

Mine as well.

ExXB,

Yes it is a problem. It causes delays and injuries, often for others, and it puts pax and crew at increased risk in scenarios such as this one. Cabin bags can be 20kg plus and will accelerate as they go down the slide, just as their owners do.

ExXXB
 

Its not about the size of the carry on. Its about the time it takes to get the carry on out of the bins or out from wherever, and the resulting delay in evacuation that will lead to deaths if the fire gets inside the passenger compartment !

Who cares about valuables or medication if you have burnt to death or through your actions caused the death of someone else.

FG

Wheelies down chutes is possibly not as important an issue as chutes deployed on the side of the fire.

I'm sure that there will be an extremely thorough investigation (FAA and BA).

Good info, thanks !

Thank goodness they all got off. A miracle and great tribute to the crew. As regards personal stuff - wallet, phone, keys and some meds, in zipped pockets or in a bag round my neck at all times. A bit lumpy but secure. Shoes left on till after take off.

I guess one question is whether that would actually be safer. It might guarantee they don't get their bag, it doesn't necessarily guarantee they'll get off faster or more safely.

It could just mean you'd have a bunch of people struggling trying to open overhead lockers and getting in the way of others rather than moving down the aisle with their bags...

It's one thing to try and design better systems, but they need to accomodate how people actually behave, not how you'd like them to.

Cows getting bigger;

A lot of the evacuation seems to have been through the L4 exit which is far further from the fire than the R2 exit. Why the preoccupation with finding out why they didn't only use exits on the right, when some of those may not have been useable and L4 clearly was?

The emergency exits are some distance from the engine and the extent of the fire may not have been immediately apparent to the cabin crew. Difficult to say, evacuate on one side only and take twice as long or get everyone off as quickly as possible fearing another China Airlines 737 inferno.

The only things certain about an emergency evacuation is that it will be chaotic and each case will be different.

Fifth hull loss on an otherwise very safe and reliable aircraft. 2x MAS, 1x Egypt Air and previous BA.

cows

Really? I suspect :oh: the cabin crew are told to assess the hazard at their door and assess/deploy accordingly, AFAIK in their SOPS there's never a blanket ban on using a whole side.

It's a big hull - Looking at the images here, some grainy, I certainly don't see any one in officialdom taking issue with the use of 1L or 4L.

Copied from Twitter (Jacob Steinberg):


'They opened the back door and slide went down and smoke started coming in plane, followed by mad dash to front. A lot of panic'


He doesn't state which side the 'back door' was on.

In defence of SLF...
 

A lot is being written yet again about how stupid passengers are who grab their hand luggage during an emergency evacuation. Well, yes, but only up to a point, in my view.

Despite the regular calls for people to be fined, then jailed, then hung, drawn and quartered for being so life-endangeringly dumb, can I ask that you consider a few things.

* I know PAX get the pre-flight safety briefing and some of them even read the card and look around for their nearest exit, bearing in mind it might be behind them. But they haven't ever actually been through this experience before. They haven't been through the mock but realistic 'OUT OUT OUT' evacuation drills that the crew have gone through. They have never been through anything like this before in their lives.

* And so - in a highly-stressed, totally unfamiliar situation - one which they have only seen in movies - their brain reacts weirdly. It tries to make sense of what's going on. It tries to re-establish some normality. "The plane has stopped, I must get my hand luggage."

* Perhaps the people sitting over the port-side wing, looking at the flames and smoke, thought to themselves, "Gosh, I really must get off this airplane just as tickity-boo as possible." (Or words to that effect which the moderators on this website won't allow.) But perhaps the passengers on the starboard side 20 rows back thought, "This is a bit weird. Oh well, grab the bag and go..."

* To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced about the argument that people think they need to get their passport or medication (how many people have medication with them on the flight? A lot fewer than try to take their hand luggage in an emergency, I suspect). But perhaps we can conclude that their are different motives for doing so - however weird, unacceptable or possibly understandable they may be.

So now, have a read of this: it's from an Airbus training document on "Unplanned Ground Evacuation" (as distinct from "Unplanned Airborne Evacuation"? Never mind - I digress).

Have a look again at that first paragraph:
It is important to note that during evacuations, especially when there is a possible life-threatening situation, passengers may react in many different ways, such as by:
• Panicking (screaming, crying, hysteria)
• Freezing up (not able to react)
• Not being aware that danger exists
• Pushing
• Exiting with carry-on baggage.

So instead of automatically calling passengers idiots, it might be better to devote your energies to calling on your superiors and employers to press for industry research into how people react in stressful situations and how to anticipate that, plan for it and design airplanes around that fact. Locking the overhead lockers sounds like a great idea, but might just add another element of confusion and result in more people blocking the aisles. But we need some research.

Oh - and in that Asiana crash, apparently, "MANY of the pax grabbed personal items because they had FALLEN OUT of the bins and were blocking the aisles, and the FA's were telling people to grab the bags."

Well done BA and a great photo of the hostie looking as if she is containing and directing the pax! It's ALWAYS about the training isn't it! "Train hard fight easy!"

A lot has been said about cabin luggage, human behaviour in a situation like that by those who have never experienced such drama and fear shall always be unpredictable! That wont change.

I wonder how many had their shoes off before taxi?
I have advocated for many years that the safety brief should contain "Do not remove foot ware until the seat belt light has gone off"

An incident during take off, twisted metal and/or slides and running across tarmac in a panic or the dark not ideal in bare feet!

Just my two penneth worth

Looking at the close-up of the wing/engine damage aftermath, it looks like the main seat of the fire was away from the engine, at or under the wing fairing. Most of the fairing (composite) has burned away completely. The youtube videos also show the fire crews tackling that area first rather than the engine and cowling. I wonder how a 787 (composite fuselage) would perform under the same conditions?

I think that inclusion in the safety video of footage showing 2 different evacuation scenarios could fix the problem of people evacuating with luggage.

The footage would be computer simulated and would show in a burning plane:

scenario 1: lots of people pause to grab luggage, so it takes 3 mins to evacuate, fire consumes the last 30% of the pax;

scenario 2: no-one stops, everyone gets out in say 90 seconds, then the fire takes hold.

This would have 2 effects: first, people might actually behave better if they had just seen this; second, if anyone did stop to grab a bag, everyone behind them would yell at them to drop it.

The problem is, people think "it will only take me 2-3 seconds to grab my bag" and they might be right. But those 2-3 seconds can add up to deaths for the last passengers.

This safety video needn't run for 3 minutes, but rather just enough to show the start and finish of each scenario.

shoes ON
 

Travelling Business with Aer Lingus requires one to have their shoes ON during takeoff and landing - this NEW requirement was introduced 2 years ago.
I wonder why it doesn't apply to ALL PAX - front and back?

On the bags, i heard a few reports that the plane was stops for around 60 seconds before the evacuation was called, maybe some pax grabbed bags during this time knowing they would be having to exit quickly?

Obviously I wasn't there and a good job was done by the crew. My only concern was why the port side slides were deployed? It may be that no one deployed from that side? Surely it would have been a lot safer to deploy only the starboard side away from the fire and possible area where an explosion risk was most?