Speedbird 25 LHR to HKG
 

Good evening,

I never post such things, but I thought this would interest some people.

Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker!

Seems to be circling over the sea dumping fuel for a return to LHR; seems to have taken off within the hour (at time of posting).

Long flight, lots of fuel gone and unhappy passengers. I wonder what it could be?

Just for those interested, that's all.

TP.

Just watched it fly over, looks and sounds normal.

(Replay for those interested: Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker! )

Brilliant. Followed it to land, got a nice bit of space behind it suggesting it was to rest on runway? Perhaps ill passenger rather than something more serious.

Be sure she was a heavy plane flying over you! I live, when in the UK, around Weybridge so get the OCK arrivals and SE departures when off 27, so I wouldn't have seen this but would have enjoyed some scanner ATC jabbering.

Perhaps someone will know what happened? Quite a serious decision to halt, dump and return a flight so soon after take-off for any crew, but a heavy 747 to HKG is quite a decision to be made.

Was just casually looking around for stormy areas (using Blitzortung website), saw some storms off east coast of the UK then saw this BA25 doing circles... thought I'd share for all since quite unique.

Cheers,
TP

According to Rumours & News Forum it was the nose gear failed to retract.
All appears to be well now.

Flightradar24.com - Live flight tracker! (Take 2 for some of the passengers from BA25 perhaps?) :O

A British Airways plane bound for Hong Kong has had to return to Heathrow after developing a "minor technical fault".

The BA0025 747 flight, which took off on time at 18:20 BST with 298 passengers on board, landed safely at about 21:15 after being redirected.

One passenger said people on the flight were "happy to be back on land".

The aircraft has been examined by engineers and the flight rescheduled for Tuesday.

'Dropping fuel'

Passenger Ashley Steel told the BBC: "They spotted very quickly that the plane had a technical issue.

"We flew over the sea for 90 minutes dropping fuel prior to returning.

"Really the whole thing felt like a detour - it was really well handled by the staff. Most people on the plane are happy to be back on land."

A BA spokesman said passengers had been offered hotel accommodation.

He apologised for the inconvenience and said the cause of the fault had not been established.

As reported by BBC News.

Technical issue aside. How many tons of fuel would be expected to be dumped in the sea on this route and would it have a detrimental effect on the sea life?

I read an estimate of 80 tonnes from somewhere* ... and a picture being retweeted (supposedly of BA25 dumping fuel) can be seen via this link: bit.ly/16vsKUO §

Edit:

*per @jrflight on this search: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BA25&src=hash

§ not wholly convinced about authenticity of fuel dump photo - it looks like a 744 wing, and the apparent date and time of pic is about right, but those particular properties appear editable in my downloaded copy!

Thanks Slip and Turn:)

Apparently an air turn-back due to tech issues is such a rare occurence that it was worthy of being reported by BBC News online.... [/sarcasm]


BBC News - Hong Kong flight returns to Heathrow with 'minor fault'

I R&N somebody said this:
Would that be the pin from the cockpit or do the towdrivers have there own pin? (Like the NWS bypass pin).

GYS there should only be the one pin and that is the one from the flight deck. The last thing anyone would want are rogue pins being used here there and everywhere. Checking that the pins are on board is a checklist item.

When asked about the reporting of this incident, a beeb beeb ceeb spokesperson defended it by pointing out that their Aviation correspondent Mr Ital had identified the fact that while the aircraft type was unknown at that stage it could have been a 'Boeing', and it could not escape anyone's notice that this flight originated from London's Heathrow Airport where some weeks ago another 'Boeing' had a problem.

Mr Ital has vast experience working on 'Boeings' and just last week with the completion of the 787-9 he has constructed an Airfix model of every Boeing type since 1963 - in some cases painting all the parts himself prior to assembly! I think you will agree that this gives Mr. N. O. Ital an insight to the functioning and operation of 'Boeings' that is almost unique amongst British Aviation Journalists.

Hi Fergineer, absolute right and that is exactly why I am asking.

If I understand this correctly, the problem was failure of the nosewheel to retract.

Apart from the obvious problems of increased drag causing a slowdown, and the extra fuel burn, is there any reason why it could not have flown to HKG, where there must be perfectly good maintenance facilities, for the problem to be dealt with there, given that at some point it had to land anyway? It would have caused less disruption to passengers, even if slightly delayed, and less wastage of fuel and environmental harm.

Would the extra fuel burn have meant it couldn't make its destination?

Capetonian,
Your obvious problems are show stoppers.
B73

Capetonian

One of the stipulations of 'gear down ferry' flights is that the aircraft must avoid icing conditions. Even though this was not a pre-planned gear down flight, I presume that the same would apply. It would be difficult to avoid icing conditions on this route, notwithstanding the range problems with the nosewheel down.

Thanks for the explanations. Was just curious.

Squawking 7700 all the way, presumably ?

Apart from the practical considerations of attempting to fly 5000nm+ with the nose gear down, BA are acutely sensitive to potential criticism of their operational decisions following their infamous three-engined LAX-LHR flight in 2005.

Even if the reason for the NLG's failure to retract had been obvious from an absence of the stowed pin (and so far that's only speculation), the only practical course of action would have been to dump fuel and RTB.

To Mr Ital's defence (well a little bit anyway) at least he has some interest in aviation. Most journos contributions in the national press are more for headline grabbing with no substance and lack of understanding of aviation.

As for the aircraft itself, there are a few probabilities (in order of highest first).

• Nose gear lock pin left in
• Faulty selector valve
• Hydraulics (not likely at this stage of information as the body gear would be affected as well - not wing gear as it is on a different hyd supply)

So there we have it.

More for the pilots to answer but I am quite certain a failure for any landing gear to raise would involve a return to the departure airport (especially as said airport is the company's main base)

WLG truck tilt problem.