Plane crashes off runway at Heathrow

[faceless]

It's not terror related? Well of course it isn't! Were we to assume that terrorists tampered with its brakes? Feel the fear!

[faceless]

Powerless: Flight BA38 skims rooftops, its nose up as the pilot grapples to stay airborne


Moment of truth: Sparks fly beneath a broken wing as the jet belly-flops onto the grass, just inside the perimeter fence


Race for safety: Emergency chutes are released and passengers flee the stricken plane

That first pic really shows how lucky everyone was! That can't be more than a few hundred feet off the ground.

[Ash]

That day was really gloomy and possibly raining .... so I think that really helped in reducing the possibility of any spark when the plane touched the ground.

Well done to the co-pilot

[major.tom]

How long before it landed did the engines cut out? I can't believe the pilot had the strength to keep it steady gliding in.

Not to say the story is false -- just incredible.

[faceless]

I'm wondering about it too... if you do a close-up on the engines in the first image you can see that the fans are moving, not static, so something must have been working. One report I saw was blaming the fuel supply - because it was refuelled in China... and we all know that China are backward and incapable of creating quality kerosene!

[Bat]

An old RAF fella wrote in a letter to a newspaper that he reckoned the engines did not cut out but went into reverse thrust and slowed the plane right down to almost stalling point. Sounds feasible to me.

[faceless]

ah right, that would explain it then

[Mandy]

Reading thread above is the first time I heard the theory that the engines cut out. I understood it that during landing the pilots ask for extra thrust .. and this time, the engines didn't react .. thus they kept running at their prior speed.

If the engines went into reverse thrust in-flight, then I think the plane would drop like a stone, which isn't what happened.

[Bat]

This is the real reason why it crashed