rfresh
B-777
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
- Posts
- 161
I'm watching a live feed from BBC, over here.
Evidently the BA Flt declared an emergency then turned toward the runway.
There is a lot of spectator eyewitness BS being spread right now, and no facts as of yet.
BBC is now interviewing a BA Captain, and he says this just doesn't happen to British pilots. Therefore, it must be a severe damage emergency or windshear or geese ingestion into the engines to cause the airplane to have a problem prior to touchdown. He said at least three times, "This just doesn't happen to British pilots. We are well trained. It had to be an aeroplane or weather problem."
Those BA pilots are still too much. I was working for Lockheed on their L-1011 program when BA bought a bunch of the TriStars. In those days in addition to the sim training, we did 25 hours training in the actual a/c. On my first training flight as part of the instructor crew, we had two BA Captains as our students. I was flying in the FE seat and we had an instructor pilot in the right seat and one of the BA guys in the left seat to start off.
I noticed a nose wheel steering wheel handle on the co-pilot side in addition to the normal one on the left side. I asked the instructor pilot what that was all about. He said BA insisted on Lockheed installing a nose wheel steering handle on the right side and it was cheaper not to remove the left one, so it remains.
Here's what surprised me: the BA student Captain said "Oh, BA Captains don't actually taxi the airplane, that's beneath us, that's what we have co-pilots for"!!