Investigation Report Unveils Carelessness Of Technicians of British Airways
The full 150 page report of the incident, when British Airways Airbus A319 on a routine flight to Oslo, Norway on May 24, 2013 had to make an emergency landing at Heathrow airport after engines caught fire, has been published. A puncture in fuel pipe caused the right engine to catch fire which led the captain to turn around and make an emergency landing at the Heathrow airport. The passengers were evacuated down the slides. Luckily, no one was seriously injured from the unpleasant incident.
Reports suggest that the technicians had been servicing the plane the night before, when they left the fan cowl doors on both engines unlatched before taking a break. Accidently, they went back to completely different aircraft for work after they returned. This was a severe slip-up. That meant ,the technicians “compromised by fatigue”(as the reports suggest), left the fan doors of the British Airways Airbus A319 unlocked which caused them to release and rupture during the flight. One of the technicians working on the aircraft had already worked for four 12-hour day shift and eight 12-hour night shifts in previous two weeks before the accident and the other had worked for four day shifts and six night shifts in the same period. Despite both of them being extremely experienced technicians, their fatigue left the slip up in aircraft maintenance unnoticed and was inbound for a serious disaster.
A report published freshly by Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), made a string of references to avoid similar episodes of incidents again in future.
News and picture reference: World Civil Aviation Resource Net, http://www.wcarn.com/news/45/45812.html
