As a recap, in the last 24 hours, two British Airways Boeing 777s to Orlando & the Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago have returned to their origin points of London Gatwick due to issues onboard the aircraft.
Let’s take a look at the two aircraft returning, with none of them squawking 7700 at any point during these encounters.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Incident #1: British Airways Flight BA2037 Between London & Orlando…
The first came from British Airways flight BA2037 yesterday, which was a routine flight between London Gatwick and Orlando.
G-VIIP was the Boeing 777-200ER that operated the flight, and took a decision to turn back to the UK following a cracked windscreen, as per @FlightEmergency.
The jet was in the air for a total of four and a half hours following this ordeal, and was greeted by emergency services on arrival into Gatwick.
There was a very quick turnaround on the repairs to the aircraft, with the aircraft departing the next day from London Gatwick, operating the BA2159 service to Vieux Fort.
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Incident #2: BA2239 from Gatwick to Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago…
The second incident happened earlier today on the BA2239 service between London Gatwick again and the Port of Spain in Trinidad & Tobago.
This particular service was operated by G-VIIR, another Boeing 777-200ER in the British Airways fleet.
The flight proceeded outbound normally, climbing to cruising levels between FL340 and FL370.
Established on the outbound North Atlantic crossing, the flight subsequently executed a turnaround for making a return to the United Kingdom.
As per @FlightEmergency, the cause of this return was due to a fuel leak onboard the aircraft, which had prompted the return to London Gatwick, as they wouldn’t have made it to their destination otherwise.
Like with yesterday’s emergency, six emergency assets were deployed for the arrival of the aircraft earlier this afternoon.
Overall…
These two incidents obviously had different reasons for a return to London Gatwick, and such maintenance has been carried out since.
Looking ahead, with these Boeing 777s being more on the older scale, averaging 20-25 years old, they will soon come out of service, as British Airways receives more A350-1000s and 787s in due course.
But for now, it looks like the issues have been squared away, and that these two airframes will continue to fly for now.
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