Quick Thinking! The Incredible Story of British Airways flight 38

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Wow, this is like air crash investigation; but without the fake drama, bad acting, overly long suspension and 15 minute advertisement breaks. Love it :3

I was actually on this aircraft at the time of the accident in seat 28c an aisle seat. It was a great flight back to Heathrow. We were early arriving, so feeling good. There was no warning of the accident. At the time of impact parts of the ceiling and the bulkhead fell down. The noise was very loud , then silence, and the lights went out. I thought to myself that the pilots going to get a bollocking as the landing was very hard, I hadn't a clue. A number of passengers from the cabin in front had obviously seen what had happened and came into our cabin, shouting we must get off. The small young stewardess sat next to the emergency exit took complete control shouting stay were you are sit down. The captain then came on the tannoy with the words "Evacuate Evacuate". Again the young lady reacted quickly and opened the emergency exit shouting "Go Go". My exit was just behind the port wing and was slightly skewed due to the broken undercarriage, so one had to adjust direction as you went down the slide. We were corralled away from the aircraft by the superb professional crew. It was then that it dawned on me what had happened!! I had nothing with me as it was on the aircraft. When the door was opened the smell of the fuel was immense, so priority was to get off. However I was able to borrow a phone from a kind dutchman and called my father to tell my family that I was ok, and not to worry. After a number of hours we were released by the authorities. I have to say BA were immense in their care afterwards for which I will always be grateful. I was able to meet Capt Peter Burkill a few years later, and was able to thank him. To take 5 degrees of flap off saved our lives.

You might wonder what happened to the plane after this? I did some work experience in the BA training department, and once the investigations team had finished with it, the training department descended on it like locusts. The doors were cut off and used for training the cabin crew (apparently real doors can be expensive and hard to get hold of). The seats were also used to refresh their training rooms. Finally, the cockpit was gutted, and its instruments used to upgrade the simulators, as apparently there were some newer instruments available in this plane that weren't present in the simulators.

I used to work at Boeing and supported this investigation in the Fuel Test Lab shown around 22:00. It is located at the NW corner of Boeing Field in Seattle, WA. We built a simulation of the 777 fuel system and heat exchangers that chilled the fuel to various temperatures to cause ice crystals to form. We also made a special end cap for the heat exchanger that allowed quick removal so that photos could be taken before the ice melted. My job involved instrumenting the test setup and operating a digital data acquisition system to measure fuel flow, pressures, and temperatures. We tested for months to nail down what happened inside the fuel system. Your description of what happened is spot on as far as I know. Thank you for the great documentary!

My favorite thing about this channel is the examination of what regulations, procedures and actionable information was learned from each event discussed.

This is one of the increasingly rare instances of a mechanical failure where the pilots compensated and prevented a worse crash. Kudos to a fine, professional crew!

Really interesting. So nice to be talked to like a normal educated adult. No drama, no showing off, just fascinating and well presented information. Thank you.

Your animators are absolutely insanely talented. You can talk about the specifics of fuel and water interactions, and engine systems - and the animators make it visually understandable to layman like me. Incredible.

I'm sure Heathrow also appreciated the pilots saving their ILS antenna. And leaving the runway unharmed. On top of saving lives.

The captain Peter Burkill wrote a book “Thirty Seconds to Impact” He talked to the controller after a month. The controller said he saw the pitch change and thought they were going to do a go around, when he heard the first word of the mayday call he pressed the crash alarm for the fire service. Even before the identity of the aircraft was given, and well before it hit the ground. The book has good lessons of how to deal with the media, and the company advice may not have the interests of the pilots in mind. Captain said the main reason for wanting to extend the glide was to get inside the airport boundary, as from all the accident reports and statics he had read about showed a much higher chance of people surviving inside the fence than outside.

The ATC recordings are absolutely amazing. The response was extremely professional, efficient, and conducted in a very quick manner. It was said that the passengers were exiting within seconds and emergency services were there within a few minutes. All of the training, rules and procedures that are in place worked absolutely perfectly to overcome what could have quite easily been a major incident. This incident ought to be taught as the gold standard for emergency response, if not already. The passengers on board owe it to the skill and professionalism of all involved.

23:40 The exact reason was found to be that the "tiny fuel pipes" in the FOHS were protruding about 5 mm out of the face of the filter. This hampered the heat exchange enough that when these circumstances came up, the ice ended up clogging the filter. The redesign was to remove these protrusions, making the tiny fuel pipes flush with the face of the filter. Now when the ice tried to clog the filter, it was in contact with the hot face of the filter itself, forcing the ice to melt much more quickly.

I was on a BA 747 flying in from Sydney that was about 60 minutes behind this flight. We got hit by lightning about 20 minutes out from Heathrow, the captain came on and explained that noise and assured us all was okay, then went on to explain that what we'd see in a few minutes when we were landing, crashed jet, emergency crews, etc... One of the more memorable landing approaches that I experienced.

as a fireman I really like the mayday call that "early" it saves important time, getting out to a crashed airplane can take up to 2 minutes, cutting 25% of that off it is huuuuuuuuge

This incident is a textbook example of keeping calm in the face of adversity. Nobody had experienced an incident like this before, but when this flight crew did encounter it, they did what they could to not only prevent a catastrophic accident, but also save the lives of everyone on board. It was an extraordinary feat of flying

British Airways - The most knowledgeable, experienced, calmest, collected pilots and crew ever. They are always composed under pressure and quick thinking problem solvers. There are more luxurious airlines with lavish food and service but BA will always be my first choice wherever possible. I always feel safe with them . Proud BA Gold customer for life

If I'm unlucky enough to be involved in a plane crash, I'd like to be lucky enough to be in a crash like this where everybody survives.

I am not a pilot but I simply cannot imagine how difficult it must be to intentionally pitch the nose down when you are just a few hundred feet off the ground. It is so counter-intuitive. Training must transfer the response to muscle memory so you do it without having to think about it. Great job by the pilots and crew.

I used to think that the "reenactment" videos were more entertaining. But this guy is such a great narrator and great educator. The video production and the way he shows everything is so well done.