We reported several days ago on a British Airways flight that crash-landed into Heathrow Airport on January 17. Now investigators have revealed the cause of the mishap, which resulted in no fatalities and was the first ever crash of a Boeing 777.
Just a few miles from the runway, at an altitude of about 600 feet, the pilot attempted to increase engine power to prepare for landing, but the computer-controlled engines didn’t respond. An attempt to do the same thing manually also failed, and in less than a minute, the plane skidded onto the runway. Several passengers were hurt– one seriously– though investigators are saying that the damage would have been much worse if not for the capable performance of the flight crew, especially co-pilot John Coward.
Now investigators are trying to discover whether this same sort of engine failure could occur on any other of the almost 700 Boeing 777s that are currently in operation.
That would be bad.