The British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA) issued an official statement in support of the flight deck crew of BA Flight 038, the British Airways B-777 that crash landed at London's Heathrow International Airport on January 17.
In the statement, Jim McAuslan, BALPA's General Secretary, said:
‘Captain Peter Burkill and his First Officer John Coward are ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing. Air transport remains the safest form of transport, by a long way, but accidents do happen and the text book way in which this was handled by the pilots and the cabin crew is a testament to the professionalism of all involved.BALPA is the union that represents the pilots of British Airways.
‘The BALPA web forum has been inundated overnight with compliments from their fellow professionals. The vast majority of pilots will go through their whole career without experiencing the events of BA038, but all of them are trained to cope with the possibility. This training includes frequent simulator checks in which pilots rehearse how to calmly deal with the completely unexpected.
‘The pilots and BALPA will be co-operating fully with the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) enquiries. Until we have their interim report it is inappropriate to comment on the cause of the accident; and history teaches us that their conclusions rarely reflect the immediate speculation.
‘After the long flight culminating in the accident, the pilots were then interviewed extensively yesterday by AAIB. The pilots were supported throughout by experienced BALPA representatives. The pilots do not wish to be in the public spotlight and went out for a quiet curry last night. They do not wish or seek “hero status”, and are ‘’embarrassed that their aircraft is all over the front page.’’
‘The events of yesterday did not stop with the crew of BA038. Other pilots in other aircraft lined up behind on the approach would have needed to calmly gone about re-routing. All are ordinary people who do an extraordinary thing.’
5 comments:
To the crew, passengers and controllers of the Boe777 at LHR.
Congratulations and commendations all around to you.
For the crew: Well done in an extraordinary situation. A sterling example of ability, training, and dedication to duty,
For the passengers: Your courage and calmness merits medals.
For the controllers: You also demonstrated the high levels of situational adaptability for the multitasking required of the Air and Ground Controllers in aviation today. B747 Captain(ret)
Thanks, bentwingbill, for this comment. All of us in the aviation community are proud of these folks.
unless of course the crew ran out of fuel...
Fuel starvation? Seems to be a likely cause... w/ no fire after wings punctured by landing gear and engine scrapping across ground.
Having landed (rather hard) from Boston over top of the wreckage that morning, spent the day at Heathrow trying to get the connecting flight to Glasgow and eventually getting there very early the next morning. WELL DONE all. You can't single anyone out but it seems the cabin crew also did a stellar job evacuating the plane per training with minimal injuries to those evacuated.
And total SHAME ON YOU to the passenger in the BA Heathrow domestic departures lounge who "lit off" at a BA customer services rep because her flight had been delayed two hours. Telling the BA rep that "BA was F**king incompetent". It really didn't help. I don't know what her problem was that day - but a lot of very patient customers who recognized that something quite special had happened on BA038 - and that a lot of lucky people were stil alive that day - were quite prepared to wait it out while Heathrow got straightened out.
And the BA customer service rep who was within her rights to reach across the counter, grab customer by the throat and reminder her of this - simply smiled and said "You're welcome madam".
:-)
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