British Airways Flight Was Forced To Make Emergency Landing, As Engine Caught Fire

A British Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing at Heathrow with one engine on fire after exhausted engineers worked on the wrong aircraft.

Passengers were left terrified when the covers of both engines blew off and one of them burst into flames on the flight of an A319 from London to Oslo in May 2013.

The pilot was forced to return to the airport on one damaged engine, making an emergency landing after while the plane scatted chunks of metal, some weighing up to 37kg, across the runway.

An Air Accident Investigation Bureau report (AAIB) found that blundering engineers had accidentally left the plane's engine covers unlatched during maintenance operations at Heathrow.

Two nightshift engineers had intended to return to top up the oil and latch the fan cowls, but had gone back to an entirely different plane, which was a different model, on a different stand.

The A319 that they had been working on is considerably smaller that the A321 they returned to, with 143 passenger seats, compared to 205. 

Investigators found that the workers could have been 'compromised by fatigue'.

One of the BA technicians had worked 70 hours over seven consecutive days and nights and was on the second of two 12-hour overtime nightshifts.

Though they were initially suspended, British Airways have confirmed tha
t the staff will remain with the company. 

The blunder was also missed by a pilot and ground handler inspections before take off.

The investigation revealed that one of the fuel covers cut through a fuel pipe after take off, causing the engine to set on fire and leaking almost three tonnes of fuel.

However, the engine was shut down promptly which reduced the intensity of the fire, but forced the pilot to land on just one engine.   

Passengers had tried to alert crew members about a problem with the engine but they did not understand what they were trying to say and a senior crew member couldn't manage to get in touch with the captain.

Just 33 minutes after taking off, flight BA762 was back on the runway and all 75 passengers and five crew members were being evacuated via the emergency chutes.

No-one was injured but investigators revealed that one had put other passengers at risk by throwing his suitcase down the emergency chute.

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