Thirty Seconds to Impact

By Maria Burkill and Peter Burkill

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 managed to help save the plane at the last moment thanks to a flash of inspiration that led him to change the position of the wing flaps, which appeared to gain the vehicle enough precious time to make it over the perimeter fence and land on the grass, short of the runway.

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 18, 2010
• ISBN: 9781481793063

Maria Burkill

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.

Book preview

THIRTY SECONDS

TO IMPACT

Peter Burkill and Maria Burkill

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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

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© 2010 Peter Burkill and Maria Burkill. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/10/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4490-8858-3 (sc)

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

1. The Worst Day Of Our Lives

2. Our Story

3. On The Ground Again

4. Running Away From Home

5. The Fugitives

6. Telling It

7. The Opinion Factory Turns On Pete

8. Going Back To Work

9. Money Worries

10. Silver Linings

11. Insult To A Germ

12. The All-Clear

13. Back To The Future

Postscript: Hindsight Is 20/20

Dedication

This book is for three little boys—Troy, Logan and Coby, who were too young at the time of the events described to remember anything. Together, our boys’ initials spell TLC which sums up how we, their parents, feel about them. Although Troy (two years, ten months), Logan (one year, three months) and Coby (ten weeks) were all under three at the time of the crash, they lived through what was a painfully difficult time in their parents’ lives, and yet one from which the family eventually emerged all the stronger in many ways.

A year after the plane crash in which Pete could so easily have died, we decided to start writing down our memories of what happened and how we reacted so we would have a permanent record of a dramatic incident from an equally dramatic period in our life as a family. Already, the events you are about to read have become part of the tapestry of our lives, and have utterly altered the decisions that we have made for ourselves and our future.

Pete and Maria Burkill

Acknowledgements

Deirdre Nuttall for all her help and guidance, without her we would not have known where to start with our ideas.

Tom and Clare for proof reading and making valuable suggestions.

Immense thanks to the airport emergency services who work tirelessly everyday of the year, but on a personal level for being there for my flight that day. Also to Richard Claydon of the London Fire Brigade.

For physical and emotional support our thanks go to Maria’s Mum - Vera, Sally, Helen, Beth, Yvonne H, Paul and Debs (for keeping all our passwords secret!) and to Ros for making our 5th wedding anniversary so poignant and renewing our wedding vows.

Thanks to Blueskies and Butlins for accommodating us and going the extra mile providing clothes and protection!

All of the photographers who where on scene to take their photos and then to subsequently allow permission for them to appear in this book- Metropolitan Police ASU, Allan Huse, Dennis Lau and Richard Vandervord. Front and back cover photos courtesy of Metropolitan Police ASU.

Special thanks to one of Pete’s trainers at British Aerospace Flying College, Prestwick – Captain Hercus – who he remembers telling him if you remember one thing, just remember there is never an emergency in the air.

Prologue

43 seconds to impact

Tower Control gave us clearance to land: Speedbird 38, cleared to land 27 left.

Cleared to land 27 left, Speedbird 38.

35 seconds to impact

When the 777 reaches five hundred feet from the ground, the plane gives an automatic call to announce the height. We were on a stable path and we could see the runway.

Stable, I said.

Well, sort of, John replied.

Pete, John said a moment later, I can’t get power on the engines; it’s not giving me power. There’s nothing…

What? What do you mean?

Conor jumped in.

It looks like we’ve got double engine failure, he said.

We had only seconds to act before the plane plummeted to the ground like a stone. With John at the controls, I was able to look over the panels of switches and indications.

I calculated that if we were to continue on this path, we would all die on impact.

30 seconds to impact ….

(probably the same length of time it has taken you to read the above prologue)

1

THE WORST DAY OF OUR LIVES

Maria

1310 GMT at home

The seventeenth of January 2008 was a perfectly normal day, or as normal as any day is when you have three children under the age of three—if you are a parent, you will know what I mean. Screams, wails, dirty nappies and the occasional tear-jerking gummy smile are all part of the mix, and the Cbeebies theme-tune is omnipresent.

I had just picked my two older sons, Troy and Logan, up from their nursery, and was manhandling them, Coby—a ten-week-old baby—and various bits and pieces into the house when the phone rang imperiously. I was still holding the baby’s car seat when I picked up the receiver, tucking it awkwardly between shoulder and chin with that awkward movement that all mums are familiar with.

Hello?

I looked distractedly around the kitchen. Just before popping out, I had had a delivery from Sainsbury’s, and there were groceries and orange coloured plastic bags everywhere, because I had not had time to put them away before doing the nursery run. The frozen goods were starting to melt, and it was just a matter of time before the children were going to get into the bags. There were little puddles of water on the floor.

I knew that in a few minutes, if I didn’t do something, groceries would be tossed about all over the room and I would end up having to root soggy cornflakes out of the living room carpet. I knew I had to get things put away as soon as possible, so I probably sounded pretty distracted to whoever it was on the end of the line. It was really the worst possible moment for someone to have called.

Maria? Is that you? It’s Dad.

It was John, Pete’s father. After a little to-ing and fro-ing, he got to the nub of the matter:

A plane has crashed at Heathrow.

What?

Pete had been scheduled to arrive in from Beijing that morning after having been away from us for four days. He worked for British Airways, out of Heathrow. But hundreds of flights take off and land at Heathrow every day.

Still, somehow, I knew straight away that the crash involved Pete.

For what seemed like a long time, the world stood still, and so did my heart.

Pete

Jan 16th 2235 GMT in Beijing

I had had a full eight hours sleep before receiving my wake-up call at 6.35 at the crew hotel in Beijing, so I was feeling very refreshed when I reached the lobby and met the other two members of the flight crew. I had flown the Beijing to London route quite often, and enjoyed flying back, because it was a daylight flight all the way, and one that was almost as familiar to me as the school run. While, obviously, it is important to be attentive and alert on any flight, doing a route one knows well makes for quite a relaxed experience.

Conor, John and I had a coffee together as the cabin crew boarded their transport to the airport. The last time I flew with John had been about two years earlier, when we had done a flight to Bangalore on the very same aircraft we were due to take back to London today. We had all been in China for a few days. Conor had visited the Great Wall of China the day before as it was his first trip to the country, whilst John and I had done some shopping together for our kids, enjoyed some meals out and shared outrage when we were ripped off by a canny local taxi driver with a fake meter.

I quite liked Beijing and had enjoyed the trip, although now I was more than ready to go home. Coby was still at that age when babies can change from one day to the next, and I was looking forward to seeing him and the other two boys and to giving Maria a bit of a break.

It was a cold, drizzly morning, threatening to snow with the occasional flurry of fine white flakes. We left the hotel in heavy traffic, arriving at the airport only forty-five minutes before the departure was scheduled. We would normally have at least an hour, which allows us time to get through security and immigration and arrive at the plane with plenty of time to go through all the necessary procedures, but three quarters of an hour was not bad. We had half an hour at the aircraft before take-off, so there was time to check everything and make sure that all was in order for the long flight back to Britain.

Our paperwork for the flight was picked up at the boarding gate. It detailed our routing back to London and the weather to be expected on the way and at destination when we got there, as well as forecasts for airfields en-route and preferred diversion airfields, just in case there was some sort of an emergency and we needed to land somewhere on the way back. The usual scenario when something like this happens is that one of the passengers has taken ill, and we need to land the plane expeditiously so that they can receive medical attention. Of course, the vast majority of flights do not feature any such emergency—but it is still hugely important to have a contingency plan, just in case something goes wrong. After briefing ourselves, we decided that there was no requirement to carry any more fuel than the planning computers back in London had predicted for the service, so we asked for the fuellers to pump the required 79,000 kg into the tanks.

John and I then busied ourselves in the flight deck, getting the flight management computers up and running and keying in the route information while Conor did the routine walk round outside, making sure that everything was in order. I had given the sector away to John, my First Officer, so he would be operating the flight whilst I would act as his co-pilot, while retaining overall charge as Captain. John checked the routing and the wind information in the computers whilst I set the flight deck instrument panels and calculated the performance for the takeoff.

By now, the cabin crew had prepared the cabin and were ready to accept passengers on board the aircraft. I announced that the flight deck was good to go, and everyone started to board the plane for what we all assumed was going to be a very ordinary flight to Heathrow. Shortly before we left, I filled out the tech log, which is a legal document that has to be attended to every time one flies. Fuel figures are added and signed for, hydraulic fluid levels are noted, and any problems or deficiencies that there might be are written down and checked for acceptance. The local engineers then take their signed copy, and the log book stays on the plane.

Today, everything went according to plan. There were no problems, and we were good to go at the scheduled time. As the Captain on the flight deck, I had now accepted the responsibility of the aircraft and the safety of all the passengers on board, as I had done at work every day since becoming a Captain.

0209 GMT Beijing

The take-off was uneventful—which is what one always wants in a flight, of course—so as soon as we were on our way Conor went to take his three-hour rest. On long flights, there are always enough pilots so that one is resting at any given time. We were flying at 34,750 feet, which is a little lower than normal, because temperatures were low outside and it was important to avoid the fuel getting too cold.

Ten miles ahead, we could see the tail of an Air France jet. The pale morning light stretched out on every side, and all was perfectly peaceful and calm. We knew that very cold temperatures had been forecast and that this would be something that we would need to keep an eye on as it is important that the aircraft’s fuel stays above -37 degrees Celsius, which is the temperature at which it starts to freeze. In the event, it was not quite as cold as expected and our fuel temperature never went below -34, which was within safe limits.

0830 GMT 38,000 feet

Nearly two thirds into the flight we were on schedule for a timely arrival, everything was going smoothly, and both Conor and John had taken their rest, I had decided to take the last rest and left John in charge. I took out my book, The Innocent Man by John Grisham—I like to read page-turners when I am flying—and went to lie down in the pilots’ bunk.

I thought about the kids between reading a bit and dropping off. I had been away from home for four days and I was looking forward to seeing my three boys and Maria, who was doing a fantastic job of looking after them, just ten weeks after giving birth. Logan had croup and, while I knew that he was fine with his mum, I did not like to be away for too long. Our third child was still very small, and I knew that Maria had her hands more than full, with the oldest not yet three. She was coping very well, but three pregnancies in three years is a lot for any woman to go through and I knew that Maria was concerned that spending so much time out of the workforce and away from adult conversation was going to have a detrimental effect on her confidence.

I had felt more cut off than usual on this trip, because just before leaving, my mobile phone had stopped working and gone in for repair. Usually, Maria and I texted each other regularly whenever I was away for work, but this time it had not been possible, and we had stayed in touch by email, which was fine, but somehow less immediate. A text was the next best thing to hearing her voice. The last email Maria had sent had been a tongue-in-cheek photo forwarded from a friend. There was a picture of a Mandarin Airlines MD11 plane, taxiing along. The Captain’s voice-bubble read: As we taxi out to the runway please make yourself comfortable…and for those of you sitting on the right hand side of the plane…please look to the left. In the picture, you can see an identical plane behind the taxiing aircraft, but instead of being the right way up this one is on its back on the grass, all burnt up. The cartoon had made me smile in a perverse sort of way, but made me thankful for not having been involved in an accident.

I had never been even remotely concerned that anything bad would happen to me at work. Any British Airways employee feels very safe at work, because we know how high the safety and security standards are in the United Kingdom in general, and British Airways in particular. British Airways has one of the best safety records in the world, and everyone in the organisation knows it.

1130 GMT 41,000 feet

After sleeping for two-and-a-half hours, I was woken by a crew member. I particularly remember how alert and refreshed I felt as I sat up and stretched. I got changed back into my uniform, had a wash, went back to the flight deck and was brought up to date on the flight progress from John as Conor got out of my seat for me to get into it. We were over Copenhagen and the flight was set to continue smoothly and efficiently towards London. I had a salad with a salsa dressing for lunch. I remember the meal very clearly, because I dropped a little of the tomato-based dressing on my white shirt front. It was not the first time I had spilled some food but I never have said what I said next:

Better keep that covered up if we have a crash, I commented to John. It looks discomfortingly like blood.

Never mind, he said, with a laugh. Nobody will notice. It’ll be hidden under your tie.

I better make sure I remember to wear my tie, then! I added, tongue in cheek.

As we drew near London, John and I briefed ourselves on what to expect during the descent and landing and, more importantly, planned for any unexpected events. We knew which runway we would be landing on from the airfield weather information, so we discussed the amount of flap we would use and the amount of braking required. All large aircraft have wing flaps that are extended when coming in to land in order to fly at slower speeds, much as a bird will spread its wings wider when it wants to fly more slowly. The flaps create more lift so the plane can fly at slower speeds but also produce more drag in the air, requiring more power from the engines to fly that slowly. The more flap the pilot selects, the slower he can fly. We could choose to land with the flap at either twenty-five or thirty degrees. John said he wanted to use flaps of thirty degrees, the largest possible wing, so we agreed that this was what we would do.

1200 GMT 41,000 feet, speed M0.82, 42 minutes to impact

We had been flying for almost ten and a half hours when we started to descend. As we came through 20,000 feet approaching the Essex coastline, I noticed that the fuel had started to warm up again. It had reached -20 degrees Celsius. There was plenty of it, too; 11,000 kg.

Somehow, we had managed to save fuel on the flight, and we had more than enough to take us into London, even if we faced some as yet unforeseen delay. We were, in fact, given a slight delay of just five minutes, so we went into a holding pattern north of Heathrow at Lambourne, and waited, listening to the attempts of the Polish pilot ahead of us to communicate with air traffic control, despite the language barrier. We laughed a little about the pilot’s poor command of the English language, and then I said to John, We’d better stop making fun of him. It might be us having difficulties next!

We both laughed, because we knew that was not going to be the case. Nothing at all was going to happen to us on this extremely uneventful flight.

12.37:40 GMT 3000 feet, 160 knots, 4:30 minutes to impact, over Canary Wharf

I was flying the approach on this sector, with the understanding that I would hand the controls over to John when we got closer so that he could land the plane. We came through the cloud cover at about three thousand feet and there was London laid out beneath us: the London Eye, the Thames snaking along, and the millions of people getting on with their lives, utterly indifferent to the traffic in the skies overhead. At any given moment, scores of planes are landing at any one of London’s airports; they are very much part of the general urban landscape.

The wind was at about twenty to thirty knots, which was enough to bump the plane about a little on the way down, but not enough to get excited about. At two thousand feet, we lowered the landing gear and started to tick off the landing checks on the electronic checklist. The checklist was satisfied that we had performed all the items and turned green, indicating that we were good to go. Again, everything went smoothly. I left the autopilot on, as it was rather bumpy, and continued to command it what to do.

12.40:31 GMT 1200 feet, 140 knots, 98 seconds to impact, passing Kew Gardens and Richmond Park

At one thousand two hundred feet, the auto throttles applied a boost of power to the engines as we came out of a gust of wind and into a lull.

That’s not me; that’s the autothrottles doing their thing, I shared with John.

You might want to keep the auto pilot in a little longer than usual to let the wind calm down from over the terminal, I added to help John’s approach.

Will do, good idea.

John looked relaxed.

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

Reviews for Thirty Seconds to Impact

[peterburkill · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As co-author of this book, it would be inappropriate for me not to give it 5 stars!My wife and I have written this book from the time of my crash until taking voluntary redundancy from British Airways, 18 months later. We have written it honestly and think it should appeal to a wide audience as we have been told there is a good balance between the technical explanations and the emotional affects that we endured as a family.This is not just a book for aviation enthusiasts, but also for those readers who enjoy a true life story.