The US National Transportation Safety Board has issued a video of the fire that forced the evacuation of a British Airways Boeing 777 in Las Vegas on 8 September 2015.
BA flight 2276 was at 78 kt on take-off when its left-hand engine had an uncontained failure. The captain, a 42-year-old veteran with the airline on his second last flight before retirement, stopped the aircraft on the runway and ordered an evacuation. Firefighters arrived on the scene one minute and 59 seconds later and the fire was extinguished less than five minutes after the aircraft came to a stop.
All passengers and crew survived. Nineteen passengers had minor injuries and there was one serious injury to a cabin crew member who broke her arm after falling from the end of an escape slide made slippery by firefighting foam.
No other passengers were harmed, despite some of them taking cabin baggage with them in the evacuation and despite the right engine remaining running for 44 seconds after the evacuation signal. The captain, working from memory, had missed a checklist item.
The aircraft was repaired and is still in service with British Airways.
Sheez did all that from memory and missed a critical item, this one being a big ticket item!! Amazing after all those years of training and checking he still didn’t do what was drummed into him! Just shows that all the T&C, all the CRM & HF garbage we pilots have to endure means zip! A human will react totally different in the real world!
Walter; the professional approach to the missed item is to understand human nature, how it reacts under pressure which are always individual, particular moments (even including potentially what he had for dinner the night before) and to enhance how the checklists are conducted. Its a systemic issue because we know even the best will fail when the holes line up. The solution therefore has to be systemic.
As for “means zip” – you’re assuming without basis that the training and ‘checklist practice’ didn’t result in the reduction of ‘missed items’ to just the one (in this case.)
Walter :
“Geez mate,cut the poor guy some slack.I accept that he missed a check list item,but that aircraft is a two crew operation.What was the first officer doing when they were going through the pre takeoff checklist.I think that he should have been monitoring what the captain was doing,and not letting the captain get away with doing it by memory. despite his seniority,I know I would be,and in the past have.That;s what checklists are for,is it not.Anyway enough of that.I hope the poor guy enjoys his retirement,I reckon after this little exercise he deserves it
Hear hear, Robin
Let’s not get bogged down in secondary considerations. The captain and crew did a good job of getting the thing stopped and evacuated in good time and with no serious injuries. Good enough for me.
Mick :
Totally agree with you on that.