Details of crash landing

Last Modified: 18 Jan 2008
By: Sue Turton

Captain Burkill, applauded for avoiding loss of life during yesterday's crash, says it was his senior flight officer who landed the plane.

Peter Burkill said his co-pilot John Coward had done "a most remarkable job" crash landing the plane at Heathrow yesterday.

Double engine failure is the initial findings of the investigation into the crash landing of the Boeing 777 plane.

It suggests that both engines failed to respond about two miles from the airport. The plane had been functioning normally until it was just 600 feet above the ground.

Double engine failure is extremely rare indeed. It's simply not supposed to happen. But yesterday it happened over London.

Today's initial report into the crashlanding concludes that the BA flight from Beijing got into difficulties 600 feet in the air, two miles from the end of the south runway - over a residential area of West London, north of Staines Road in Hounslow.

It says both engines failed to respond when the pilot applied the throttle.