Heathrow airliner crash blamed on ice
Thursday, 04 Sep 2008 20:04
Air accident officials blame non-fatal Boeing 777 crash at Heathrow earlier this year on ice in plane's fuel system
Air accident officials have blamed a non-fatal Boeing 777 crash at Heathrow earlier this year on ice in the plane's fuel system.
The aircraft came down on landing at the London airport on January 17th, with the 136 passengers and 16 crew members all escaping with their lives.
One passenger broke their leg, however, with eight other passengers and four members of the crew sustaining minor injuries.
Publishing its latest report on the crash on Thursday, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said ice had restricted the flow of fuel to the plane's engines, cutting off the supply.
Both engines failed as the aircraft attempted to land.
"For ice to accrete within the fuel system it requires long periods at low fuel flows and temperatures below the critical icing temperature," the AAIB said.
"It is known that ice behaves differently as the fuel temperature changes.
"However, at present it is not fully understood how the ice forms within the aircraft fuel system at different temperatures due to the variability in the results on the fuel rig and differences in the layout between the fuel rig and the actual aircraft fuel system."
But the AAIB noted that the fuel's temperature had fallen to a low of -34C, far higher than the -57C that fuel freezes at.
The branch said investigations would continue into the reasons behind the crash.