I read in one of the UK papers that the reason the flight kept on going was to avoid paying the astronomical landing fees charged at the airport.

Sounds like a very British thing to do.

Muck

It'd have been very risky and dangerous to land a overweight plane, but as we already know the outcome of the Swissair 111 - i.e. all 229 aboard perished - then it's not unreasonable to say that maybe a few lives could have been saved otherwise.

The "right thing" to do may not be the "best thing" to do, occassionally.

Mucky (or anyone else) how much are the landing fees? Not that any amount of cost savings justifies endangering lives, but I'm curious.

i wish i'd never read this.
ignorance is bliss.

I certainly don't know the amounts of all the landing fees but it's a lot of dollars. Different airports charge different fees but it is a huge amount of every airports revenue.

Not sure exactly but the landing charge seems to be around $4-5 /1000 pound of weight.
I have no idea how heavy a fully laden plane would be. However I suspect its quite a lot !!

Muck

From today's Wall St Journal:

"The same British Airways 747 that flew from Los Angeles to England on only three of its four engines had a repeat occurrence on its next round trip: It lost an engine en route from Singapore to London, but the crew continued, flying 11 hours with a dead engine." ...

"The incident came just two days after the European Union began making airlines compensate passengers for long delays, with payouts as high as €600, or $788, a passenger. The British Air Line Pilots' Association, the union representing British Airways pilots, issued a statement after the incident saying the new regulation could pressure pilots to take more risks to save money. British Airways adamantly denied that financial pressures weighed on the crew's decision to try to make it to London."
...

"Boeing 747s are certified to fly on only three engines, and pilots carry three-engine performance charts. The British Airways plane, a 747-400, is capable of flying on just two engines, although only at lower altitudes and with some difficulty. ...

"The FAA said it believed the Los Angeles flight would have violated U.S. aviation regulations, which require most planes to land at the nearest suitable airport after an engine failure. The British crew, however, was flying under United Kingdom regulations, which allow the flight to continue."

Horsefeathers.

Being certificated to fly on three engines does not mean that it's a good idea to head out across the Atlantic in that configuration. The additional drag produced by the opposite rudder necessary to overcome asymmetric thrust will go through your fuel at an unpredictible rate. I think they're lucky they made it to Manchester.

I think I'll stick to non-EU flag carriers for a while.

But it's still the world's favourite airline. And if I hear the "flower duet" one more time I am going to send a box of candy to Sir Richard.

Ironically, later they flew to Singapore with this configuration, under somewhat different circumstances:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/eu....ap/index.html

The scariest part of the whole incident was "...the Boeing 747 ran low on fuel after facing headwinds that were stronger than expected."

And what if they had been <u>stronger than that</u>? Once you pass Iceland, you have to make it to Scotland, or you die.

Anyway, the quote above is a lie. The plane ran low on fuel because it was being managed by morons.

I had been wondering, after reading these horror stories about British Air, whether European carriers would be more likely than US-based ones to take such risks because of the new EU regulations. (These require airlines to compensate passengers if they are bumped or flights are cancelled.)

However, I read in the Wall St Journal today, that these rules also affect non-EU carriers flying to Europe. So I guess being on an American plane is no guarantee of better safety practices.

As a former 747 captain for Pan Am and United now retired, having flown for 42 years I will say this, even if US regulations would allow me to continue that flight on 3 engines I would not even consider that choice. I deem it reckless. With 2 engines out on the same side , you are definately in an emergency situation. I have witnessed many simulator crashes in that configuration. As for telling these poor passengers, many of which are already fearful flyers that the next 11 or 12 hours they will be flying with one engine shutdown, what were they thinking? Just worrisome for them?
It requires about 45 minutes to dump enough fuel to get down to maximum certified landing weight, but can easily be landed at max weight, but a lengthy inspection is required afterwards
Need I say this is all about money and convenience for the airlines when they pull these tricks?

dchap, I'm glad to hear another pilot's opinion. All of the pilots on pprune.org seem to support the pilots' actions in this case. I totally agree with your assessment of the risk - all the airline crashes I've read about involve a series of things going wrong.