Doors on both engines of emergency landing British Airways flight 'were left unlatched'

The fan cowl doors from both engines detached as the aircraft left the runway at Heathrow, puncturing a fuel pipe on the right engine, the report said

24 May 2013: Emergency services attend a British Airways passenger plane after it had to make an emergency landing at Heathrow airport (PA)

Doors on both engines of a British Airways flight involved in an emergency landing drama last week had been left unlatched during maintenance, according to an official accident report .

Flight BA762 was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after take-off from Heathrow last Friday. Smoke was seen pouring out of one of the engines of the Oslo-bound Airbus A319 which had 75 passengers and five crew on board.

The fan cowl doors from both engines detached as the aircraft left the runway at Heathrow, puncturing a fuel pipe on the right engine, the report said.

The detaching also punctured the airframe and some aircraft systems and the flight crew, led by the 50-year-old captain, elected to return to Heathrow.

On the approach to land an external fire developed on the right engine, with the left engine continuing to perform normally throughout the flight.

The report added that the right engine was shut down and the aircraft landed safely. The emergency services quickly attended and extinguished the fire in the right engine.

Passengers and crew evacuated the aircraft via the escape slides, without injury.

The report said: "Subsequent investigation revealed that the fan cowl doors on both engines were left unlatched during maintenance and this was not identified prior to aircraft departure."

The AAIB published a photo of the aircraft taken prior to its pushing back from the stand before take-off.

This was one of a number of photographs showing the fan cowl doors unlatched on both engines.

The report said the aircraft had undergone scheduled maintenance overnight. This required opening the fan cowl doors on both engines to check oil levels.

The report said that plane manufacturer Airbus had recommended airlines strictly adhere to maintenance standards following previous instances of fan cowl door separation on the A320 "family" of planes, which include the A319 in last week's incident.

Procedures for maintenance checks include crouching down to see that the fan cowl doors are closed and latched, the AAIB said.

The report said that last July Airbus said there had been 32 reported fan cowl door detachment events - 80% of which occurred during the take-off phase of flights.

On some occasions, significant damage was caused to the aircraft but none of the events resulted in a subsequent fire.

"The source of ignition that led to the in-flight fire (in last week's BA incident) is still under investigation," the AAIB said.

The AAIB recommended that Airbus notify Airbus A320 family aircraft owners of the BA incident and reiterate "the importance of verifying that the fan cowl doors are latched prior to flight by visually checking the position of the latches".