A couple of days ago, a British Airways 777 received a bomb threat in Bermuda, and was evacuated. If you ask me, the most shocking part of this incident is how slowly the evacuation was carried out…
In this post:
British Airways 777 evacuated after bomb threat
This incident happened on Sunday, May 5, 2024, and involves British Airways flight BA158, scheduled to fly from Bermuda (BDA) to London (LHR). The flight was operated by a 25-year-old Boeing 777-200ER with the registration code G-VIIN.
The air traffic controller gave the British Airways jet takeoff clearance on runway 12, which the pilots acknowledged. A moment later, the air traffic control frantically canceled the takeoff clearance, informing the pilots that they had “received some information regarding a bomb threat.”
The aircraft ended up being directed to a remote part of the airport, and eventually the 777 was evacuated (more on that below, because it was quite a rigamarole), and the flight was canceled for the evening. There apparently also ended up being a bomb threat in the terminal, so that was evacuated as well.
After a couple of hours, the bomb threat was cleared, though at that point it was too late for the flight to still operate that evening. As a result, the flight was rescheduled for Monday.
I understand airports and airlines have to take threats seriously, though you can’t help but wonder how credible these kinds of threats really are. If someone actually intends to blow up a plane (or an airport), they’re not going to send an email advising of their plans. But hey, I guess this fits in the “better safe than sorry” category.
Bermuda Airport displayed utter incompetence
Here’s the most interesting aspect of the story, if you ask me. VASAviation has the air traffic control audio from the incident, and it’s kind of amazing how poorly airport officials handled this. You can view the video below, and I’d highly recommend doing so, if you’re into stuff like this.
Airport officials deal with this situation at a glacial pace, and I have to give the British Airways pilots credit for their professionalism, though their (understandable) impatience is palpable:
- The British Airways 777 was directed to taxi to a remote part of the airport
- The airport arranged for stairs to be brought to the aircraft, though at an absurdly slow pace
- The pilots frequently followed up on the progress of the stairs, and were told that the stairs were on their way
- However, no progress was made, and eventually the pilots threatened that if stairs don’t show up soon, they’d have to pop the slides and evacuate that way; they also declared a “mayday”
- The aircraft only ended up being evacuated 57 minutes after the takeoff was rejected due to the bomb threat
I think authorities at Bermuda Airport need to review their practices if it takes nearly an hour from the time that an emergency is reported to when stairs can be brought to an aircraft for an evacuation. That’s totally unacceptable. I mean, if the flight weren’t in a place as remote as Bermuda, it might’ve been faster to just fly somewhere else and evacuate there.
Bottom line
A British Airways Boeing 777 received a bomb threat at Bermuda Airport, leading to an evacuation. The most shocking part of this incident is how long it took to get passengers off the plane. It took the airport almost an hour to send stairs to the aircraft, so that passengers could be offloaded.
What do you make of this British Airways 777 evacuation?
You're totally not grasping the impact of the airport's setup. A C17 was stupidly sat in the secured area but you can tell things were moving in background. Airport policies all prevent more human life being put at risk. It's a balance obviously, but she was also taking info on mass terminal evac. I grasp pilot frustration but there is more than one plane of 160 approx people to think about. The threat was clearly...
You're totally not grasping the impact of the airport's setup. A C17 was stupidly sat in the secured area but you can tell things were moving in background. Airport policies all prevent more human life being put at risk. It's a balance obviously, but she was also taking info on mass terminal evac. I grasp pilot frustration but there is more than one plane of 160 approx people to think about. The threat was clearly reduced once the terminal building was also brought into discussion. None of this is new so I'm sure those pilots are clued up on them being "sitting ducks" until more info is gathered. Is there room for improvement? Yes. But I'm tired of reading people slagging off these people. Checkout similar handling of threats where planes have been escorted to Stansted etc. If you do checkout, notice the terminal isn't at threat and there's clearly much more staff on off along with a tested safe stand. Had he acted post May Day call you'd guarantee injuries on evac. There'll be lessons learnt but things were moving in background during a busy active incident over several areas. The plane was one thing they could control unlike the packed terminal. Be interesting to read any outcome/recommendations.
I too cannot handle the pop ups. I’ve been a reader for years and this is the only travel blog I still follow but I fear that soon I will be following no travel blogs. I use Feedly.
The title reads that BA messed-up an evacuation. In fact , it was Bermuda Airport messing-up the evacuation; which is NOT so dramatic! Such bias, 'click-bait' reporting!!
Your last comment is irresponsible. Not that any pilot would take cues from a blog, but to suggest a high speed, pressurized take off to another location to evacuate, is just plain irresponsible. I get it that it was a “joke” - but it’s inappropriate and minimizes the seriousness of such events. And yea, the ads. Seriously- stop them. You are likely losing revenue as people ( like me) are actively choosing to not click any ads at all.
Chill, DT, chill!!
(If) your testes ever descend, I hope it happens will your sitting on your toilet and they descend right into the BOWL - Ploopity plopity!
Esther. Ok. That says it all. Immature. Esther.
I have to second the comments about the ads. I'm a longtime reader, and its virtually impossible to view the website on mobile.
Install AdGuard.
I agree on Ad popping up everywhere. This is now borderline unacceptable. And you can't close them by clicking on X on top right corner. I understand the financial gain from the Ads, but what's the point if people can't read the article. You will soon start loosing viewers / readers and hence Ads ultimately.
I have no issues clicking the X on both mobile and desktop.
Credit card referrals is not enough revenue.
You didn't come here and use his links did you.
Likelihood of people leaving his site is content not ads.
Not really worth a daily visit if the site consistently have clickbaits or TMZ content. Even the fun of having hotel own its mistake get's boring when it turns to extortion and blackmail. Those...
I have no issues clicking the X on both mobile and desktop.
Credit card referrals is not enough revenue.
You didn't come here and use his links did you.
Likelihood of people leaving his site is content not ads.
Not really worth a daily visit if the site consistently have clickbaits or TMZ content. Even the fun of having hotel own its mistake get's boring when it turns to extortion and blackmail. Those sites give me a different kind of fix.
Sympathy to that poor Japanese hotel staff being threaten by a chargeback and possibly bought the gift cards out of pocket.
Your syntax is.....interesting. It reminds me of a (really) poor man's version of AI.
Takeoff is canceled by bomb threat, then just pop the slides in the remote area. If an emergency is called then act like it is an emergency. It is or it is not. Pick one.
I think the pilots took the issue as serious as the local authorities.
Caribbean time has reached Bermuda.
Like all other aviation improvements in the past, we are still one disaster short of making changes happen.
It takes an actual plane to blow up waiting for stairs before everyone starts to make it mandatory to deploy slides immediately. Just look at 9/11 and TSA.
However, I do think the pilot did not want...
I think the pilots took the issue as serious as the local authorities.
Caribbean time has reached Bermuda.
Like all other aviation improvements in the past, we are still one disaster short of making changes happen.
It takes an actual plane to blow up waiting for stairs before everyone starts to make it mandatory to deploy slides immediately. Just look at 9/11 and TSA.
However, I do think the pilot did not want to use slides as panic could cause more problems then the threat itself.
Eskimo . yes and it would be expensive.
Please fix the website. I can barely read articles due to all the advertising that pops up. Moreover, the design is awful. The old design was so much better.
It got REALLY bad. Bunch of people have been complaining, but Lucky doesn’t do anything about it :(
In his defense it seems to be an issue with all the blogs hosted on the platform (boarding area)
Agreed. This issue isn't just with OMAAT, but also other Boarding Area blogs. I don't think Ben has direct control over the ads themselves, I think that is controlled by Boarding Area (I remember Ben mentioning that somewhere on the blog).
But I would hope that Ben has some influence over the people who control the ads to be able to pass on the message of how these ads are an issue (particularly for those...
Agreed. This issue isn't just with OMAAT, but also other Boarding Area blogs. I don't think Ben has direct control over the ads themselves, I think that is controlled by Boarding Area (I remember Ben mentioning that somewhere on the blog).
But I would hope that Ben has some influence over the people who control the ads to be able to pass on the message of how these ads are an issue (particularly for those on mobile devices), and hopefully push for a fix. But it could also be that he has a contract with Boarding Area which gives all advertisement control to them, and he may not have a say at all. I hope the latter isn't true, and hopefully Ben can communicate this issue to those in control of the ads and push for a fix (at least make the X bigger for mobile).
Install a pop up blocker
If your foot is hurting because you are standing on a nail, the solution is to remove your foot from the nail, not eat more painkillers.
Pop up blockers have been available for free, on every significant browser, both desktop and phone, for more than a decade.
Why this is still an issue for anyone?
I never see pop-up ads on this site, and I don't use ad-blockers.
Oh. I see all the comments about pop-up ads are from "Guests," and I am a registered "Member." I don't recall the registration process being onerous, so maybe the answer is to become a registered Member. (shrug)