Thirty Seconds to Impact
by
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I flew down to about a thousand feet, with the runway in clear view, and handed the controls to John. "You have control,” I said matter-of-factly. "I have control,” came the reply. I knew that John was a good pilot and had no doubt about his ability to get the job done while I oversaw everything. Tower Control gave us clearance to land: “Speedbird 38, cleared to land 27 left.” 12.41:26 GMT 600 feet, 140 knots, 43 seconds to impact I knew that I would be home with my wife and boys in just a few hours. I had been looking forward to seeing them for days, so I was very eager to get down and through the airport so that I could hop into the car and make my way home to Worcester as quickly as possible. "Cleared to land 27 left, Speedbird 38,” I read back to the man in the tower. I flicked the taxi and runway turnoff lights on; three switches, one at a time. It was my way of confirming to myself that we had received clearance to land. At six hundred feet, I found myself running through my own personal checklist in my head. I was happy that we had completed our checklists, had our clearance to land and that the passengers and crew were safe for landing. In the body of the plane, the passengers had been wearing their seat belts for twenty minutes or so, and the cabin crew had taken their seats. After such a long flight, they would all be looking forward to stretching their legs and getting home, too. I glanced at the gear indicators to double check that they were down and locked, in case the electronic checklist had it wrong --although, of course, it never gets it wrong. We were visual with the runway and also had a very good view of the terminal and I could see that our gate was empty so I knew that we would not have to wait on the ground. The passengers and crew would all be off the plane quickly, and on their respective ways home. That was all very good. I had a few seconds to tidy up my side of the flight deck and get ready to land, so I started attending to the last few details. 12.41:34 GMT, 500 feet, 135 knots, 35 seconds to impact, just north of Hounslow Heath When the 777 reaches five hundred feet from the ground, the plane gives an automatic call to announce the height. This is the pilots' cue to assess the approach path and determine whether or not it is safe to land before it is too late to do anything about it. Today, as usual, there were no problems. We were on a stable path with power in the engines and we could see the runway very clearly. "Stable,” I said. "Well, sort of,” John replied. "Pete,” John said a moment later in a much more urgent tone, “I can't get power on the engines; it's not giving me power. Pete? What's going on? I can't do…” "What? What do you mean?” I looked at what John was doing. He was pushing the throttles forward as far as possible. I helped him to push them forward a little more. It did not make any difference. The plane did not respond in the slightest. This was not good. We never have to push the throttles that far; there is never any need. I looked at the engine instruments, and saw no indication that the engines were responding to the request for power that we were making. Both engine instruments were completely blank with no power indications and giving a confusing message. We were experiencing some sort of double engine failure, with no caution warnings in the form of bells or lights and no explanation whatsoever as to what was going wrong. I felt strangely calm in the face of this dreadful realisation. What's going on? I thought. Is this a dream? This can't happen. This is the most modern jet in the world. What has happened to these engines?
Conor jumped in. "It looks like we've got double engine failure,” he said, confirming my diagnosis and helping me to focus. This is what I'm here for, I thought. I'm the Captain, and I will have to decide what to do to save the aircraft. Everyone is relying on me.
We had only seconds to act before the plane plummeted to the ground like a stone, obliterating scores of lives in the process. In a routine simulator detail, dealing with an emergency, the First Officer will always fly the plane while the Captain follows emergency checklists before taking the controls for the final landing. However, in this emergency there were no checklists to follow. In fact, this was not a scenario covered in the books at all, let alone the simulator. This was one of those grey areas the trainers warn you about. I would just have to decide what to do based on what was happening. I chose to leave John flying the plane because I knew that he was doing a good job, and that I needed to have my hands free to figure out how I was going to get us down with as little loss of life as possible. With John at the controls, I would be able to look over the instrumentation, the array of panels and switches, and make a more structured decision about how to minimise loss of life.
12.41:39 GMT, 370 feet, 125 knots, 30 seconds to impact
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About the Book
When Peter took charge of the flight deck of the 777 and took off from Beijing airport, there was nothing to suggest that this trip would be anything other than a routine flight of the sort he had made so many times before. It was not until moments before landing that anything went wrong. Coming in to Heathrow Airport, the plane suffered inexplicable loss of power to both engines, and it was suddenly likely that the plane would plough into a built-up area outside the airport, with the loss of all lives on board. Peter tells us in graphic detail his thoughts and actions when he
For both Maria and Peter, their lives following the crash have resulted in experiences that they never would have expected to have happened. There isn't a handbook with rules to follow after a crash so the subsequent aftermath was laced with events that could have been handled better from all sides, which lead to Maria and Peter having to find strength inside them that they had never needed before.
A little more than a year later, they have used these strengths to begin a new chapter in their lives; starting with leaving British Airways and celebrating a second chance to enjoy life.
But there are still nights when they find themselves awake, crying about what could have happened on that fateful day.
About the Author
Peter Burkill captured the world's attention when the aircraft he was captain of crashed into London Heathrow in January 2008. Peter was born in Chesham, Bucks in 1964 and educated at Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham. He attained a BAHons degree in Business Studies at Portsmouth before working as a minilab sales representative with Kodak UK. Peter had been accepted to train as a commercial pilot at Prestwick under the British Airways sponsorship scheme in 1987, where he graduated in 1989. He has since flown for British Airways for 20 years flying Lockhead Tristars, DC-10s and Boeing 777s. Peter achieved his command on B777s in 2004 and during his career has accumulated over 13000 flight hours. He took voluntary redundancy from British Airways in August 2009. Maria Burkill was born on the Wirral, Merseryside in 1974 and was educated at Upton Hall Convent, Upton. When she left school she followed her heart and became a Redcoat at Butlins, moving on to working as a holiday representative, travel agent and then into the aviation industry as an air hostess with British Airways. Peter and Maria met in 2002 and married 9 months later. Maria left British Airways at this time and joined an NHS ambulance service and started training as an ambulance technician. Within four years Maria and Peter were the proud parents of three sons and Maria had qualified in her profession. They are currently living in Worcester, UK.