Messy British Airways 777 Bermuda Bomb Threat

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…

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.

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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?