British Airways 777 Which Caught Fire In Las Vegas Will Fly Again

I always google the tail number before I get on a plane, partially to help record it in my history and partially out of curiosity about the age of the plane, etc.

Then, one day, a NTSB report popped up... It was one of the Southwest planes that had its roof go partial-sunroof midflight. Amused, I shared this data with a flight attendant once boarded. She refused to believe that the plane we were on was actually that one that had this incident... so she went to confirm this with the captain. She seemed rather uneasy about the result of that chat, but didn't discuss with me.

But, of course they would repair and return that one to the sky! This one... I'm not so sure of.

VH-OQA (A380 engine disintegration) and VH-OJU (I think - 744 overrun at BKK) both suffered significant damage and were both repaired at considerable cost. However Qantas has a strong incentive not to write off an airframe so it can keep its "Rain Man" marketing alive of never having had any aircraft write offs in its operating history.

There's an "inaugural" to be on!

@ Alex, just a slight correction there: the aircraft involved in the BKK overrun was actually VH-OJH. It became known within the airline as "Oh Jesus Hell".

Probably not as bad as you think. I am sure there was a cost-benefit analysis done on the plane. I wonder who will ultimately pay for it the airline or get insurance reimbursement? I had a classmate in the MBA program that I was in was a Structural Engineer for USAirways/American that would undertake just this sort of thing. As long as the air frame is intact they can repair. Might look worse than it is. If they are getting $7.7M for a used one on the market it is highly unlikely that the repair cost would even be 20% of that. Heck, just look at cars, there are millions of them running around that have been repaired from proportionally worse shape.

Before "The Grammar Police" gets here, I'll point out that the plane didn't SET on fire, it CAUGHT fire (unless it was suicidal or something).

@ Arcanum -- Good catch, thanks! Caught that mistake pretty quickly and updated the title, but forgot to update the body of the post. Thanks!

@Arcanum - Funniest post of the day.

Long live the B777 - between this aircraft and QR's which sustained damage during the MIA runway excursion but flew on to DOH without incident, they sure are a hardy plane.

The Dynamic Airways 767 that caught fire at FLL is still sitting there with no obvious signs of activity other than the name has been painted over... Wonder what will become of that plane.

The 747 in United flight 811 was returned to service. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811

I don't think it's worth the few million dollars to take a chance:

Japan flight 123

China flight 611

Maybe the Russian jet in Egypt

Damn thing's insured anyway.

"British Airways does have one of the very best safety records out there."

Except if this B772 was written off BA would match MH in having 2 hull loss incidents, that might factor in a bit.

The Emirates 340 that suffered a major hull puncture in Melbourne was repaired at a very expensive price to avoid the airline from taking a hull loss on their safety rating

Arcanum, the incorrect use of 'set' over 'caught' is nothing to do with grammar: grammar is all about punctuation marks and word forms. This type of error is more likely to be of interest to the Semantics Police.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist it!

@Sgt. Richard: Ah, but "The Grammar Police" is actually the name of another commenter, not a descriptive term, hence the capitalization.

I guess this makes me The Pedantic Police!