After yesterday's Heathrow incident there has been much conjecture regarding the role of the BA captain Peter Burkill in avoiding a fatal accident. He is about to give a press conference (4pm GMT) and i hope to update you with what he has to say as it happens:
Update 1: The press conference is already slightly delayed (very unlike BA) and the BBC News 24 anchor is filling in. Peter Burkill is due to be there, as is BA Chief Executive Willy Walsh.
Update 2: Peter Burkill gets a hero's welcome from BA staff as he appears for a photo call at BA headquarters.
Willy Walsh introduces the staff to the press
Peter Burkill:
"We are trained to deal with emergency situations...Flying is about teamwork and we had a fantastic team"
He carries on to praise his team individually for their efforts. Disappointingly, as this incident is still under investigation, he is not allowed to comment further on the incident.
Update 3: It is revealed that the Senior First Officer John Coward was the handling pilot on the final approach.
And that's it...very brief but with the investigation still ongoing it is understandable that no exact details of the final moments were discussed.
on January 21, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply
BA777 incident - windshear/microburst/wake turbulence may be a factor in this incident - I have not seen any reference to this - spool-up time in a low-level incident may be such that the descent could not be arrested before impact