Passengers on a recent transatlantic British Airways flight had a rather eventful journey. The flight made a u-turn over the Atlantic, after one of the pilots became incapacitated.
In this post:
British Airways 777 diverts to St. John’s Canada
This incident happened on Thursday, March 14, 2024, and involves British Airways flight BA2272 from New York (JFK) to London (LGW). The flight was operated by a 25-year-old Boeing 777-200ER with the registration code G-VIIP.
The flight took off from New York at 9:54PM local time, to start the quick overnight transatlantic crossing. The 777 reached its cruising altitude of 40,000 feet, and the first three hours of the flight were routine, as the plane made its way northeast over the Atlantic.
However, at that point one of the two pilots onboard reportedly became incapacitated. The remaining pilot declared an emergency, and requested to divert to St. John’s, Canada (YYT), which required backtracking around 500 miles.
From the time that the aircraft turned around, it was a roughly 80-minute journey to St. John’s, where the aircraft touched down on runway 29 at around 3:30AM local time, just over four hours after it had departed.
Emergency services were standing by so that the incapacitated pilot could be looked after. I haven’t seen any update as to that pilot’s condition, but hopefully s/he is okay. Also, kudos to the pilot flying for handling a stressful situation with ease, as I have to imagine that wasn’t a fun experience.
Below you can hear part of the air traffic control audio of the diversion.
British Airways’ impressive rescue effort
Often when you have a medical emergency, you can just drop a passenger off, and then continue the journey to the intended destination. Of course it’s a different story when the person with the medical emergency is one of the people flying the plane.
Landing in St. John’s in the middle of the night (a station not ordinarily served by British Airways) with hundreds of people is a logistical nightmare. So with that in mind, I have to give British Airways credit for a very impressive effort to minimize the inconvenience for passengers.
How did British Airways handle this situation? British Airways has a daytime flight from Newark (EWR) to London (LHR), BA180, scheduled to depart at 8:55AM. On March 15, 2024, British Airways decided to cancel that flight, and instead flew the aircraft to St. John’s to pick up stranded passengers.
A 23-year-old Boeing 777-200ER with the registration code G-YMMJ flew from Newark to St. John’s with the flight number BA9156, in a flight time of 2hr15min. It landed there at 1:07PM local time. Then it loaded up passengers, and at 4:18PM the plane took off for London Heathrow, where it landed at 11:10PM on Friday, March 15, 2024, after a flight time of 4hr21min.
All things considered, I’d say that’s about as efficiently as you could rescue passengers in a situation like this, so credit goes to British Airways’ operations team for that.
So, what happened to the original 777? That first 777 ended up staying on the ground in St. John’s for a total of just under 36 hours. The plane was then ferried back to London Gatwick empty, as flight BA9608. That flight took 4hr18min, and landed in London just before 10PM on Saturday, March 16, 2024.
Bottom line
A British Airways Boeing 777 flying from New York to London had a very complicated transatlantic flight, after a pilot became incapacitated. The aircraft diverted to St. John’s, where the pilot received medical attention, and hopefully s/he is okay.
I’m impressed by how quickly British Airways managed to pick up stranded passengers — the airline canceled a Newark to London flight so that the aircraft could instead return to London via St. John’s, picking up stranded passengers.
What do you make of this British Airways diversion?
Where can members send an incident? I retired from Aircraft Crash/Fire/Rescue, and I have been a Pylon Judge at the Reno International Air Races since 1987. On Sept. 18, 2022 there was a tragic crash of an L-29 Jet Race plane at Outer Five Pylon. That's me, the jet went in 100 feet in front of me at 513 mph.
My e wife and self just flew British Airways on an Airbus A380 Miami-London NS and they are superb. I’ve flown them before So it doesn’t surprise me how they handle this situation, they are a top-notch Airline Kudos for the Brits!
This is why if you are down to one pilot you enlist the most competent other person on board to assist the remaining pilot in case that person also succumbs. On that flight there may well have been a pilot among the passengers. Failing that, at least teach a mature person to use the radio for help if needed.
Instead of screwing the Newark passengers, did they not have any planes at London (or elsewhere in the British Isles) that could have flown to St Johns? Might have taken less time, all things considered.
And no consideration for the crew who was taken ill. Typical a- hole passenger and most likely an American, given your lack of geographical skills, taking into consideration the logistics of doing this and the distance considering Newark is closer than the U.K.
Wouldn't this imply BA has to pay EC261 comp for 2 flights of oassengers instead of just one?
And that’s all you think of. Compensation. The divert is an unforeseen medical emergency so no. Then again money grabbing cockroaches don’t care if someone could die. All about me society and give me my compensation.
If you were on that plane, then you would think that this was handled well. If you were scheduled on the cancelled Newark flight you would be livid. Interesting you don't discuss the arrangements for those people. I think the better way would have been if the Newark flight flew an extra pilot as a passenger to St. Johns. Dropped him off and then both flights continued to London. This would have solved the ferry...
If you were on that plane, then you would think that this was handled well. If you were scheduled on the cancelled Newark flight you would be livid. Interesting you don't discuss the arrangements for those people. I think the better way would have been if the Newark flight flew an extra pilot as a passenger to St. Johns. Dropped him off and then both flights continued to London. This would have solved the ferry issue too. This said compared to other situations like this, it was surprisingly well handled.
The Newark morning flight is usually half empty and is being paused/cut soon - so they may have been able to accommodate at least some of the passengers on the JFK morning flight instead. But yes, as someone who takes it semi-regularly, I would not have been pleased.
As for the passengers on the diverted flight, did they just sit in the terminal at St John from 3.30am to 1pm?
Besides the actual story of the poorly pilot something this article got me thinking about is the age of aircraft in our skies. The 2 planes in this article are 23 years and 25 years old. I know there must be robust maintenance on these aircraft, but the pressures they are under got me thinking …what’s reasonable life expectancy of an aircraft flying across the Atlantic most days? Ben, could be an interesting future article !
So would you expect to retire humans at 23 years old too??? Why bring up an issue with the aircraft when it didn’t exist. Do you expect an airline to replace its fleet every 5 years ? Perhaps you would do that with employees too and replace them every few years.
When an aircraft undergoes a d check it’s completely taken apart so it’s almost rebuilt.
What a bizarre comment comparing humans and aircraft!
Haven’t brought up any issue about the aircraft actually, but as it was Ben who referenced the age of the aircraft it just got me thinking be an interesting future article.
The USAF is flying some large airframes like B-52s that are 60 years old. Boeing's estimate on a 737 is 55,000 flight hours, most Airbus aircraft are estimated for 60K. They can last a long time with proper maintenance.
Wow!
He will be fine. He just had the fish.
Jeez glad everything ended well.
I first read the headline and thought "decapitated" and was like wtf happened!? Opps
Safe and effective.
Read the entire article and was utterly amazed upon reaching that end not to find some blame charged to Boeing for this incident.
Seems the approach du juor these days.
Perhaps he had a heart attack because he was so surprised that no parts of the plane fell / blew off, so it's still Boeing's fault.
@TravellinWilly
You clearly haven't looked the details of recent accidents. Do you guys die or something if anything happens to a Boeing plane but it turns out that it isn't the manufacturer's fault?
"AAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
-Me, had I been the copilot of this plane.
And for some fun memories, this:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/flight-attendant-panics-as-jet-falls-8-000ft-in-seconds-467951.html
One thing that struck me was how unclear some of the BA pilot's transmissions were, yet controller knew exactly what he was saying and just took it all in his stride. Pros all around in this incident. Kudos.
The controller probably heard him much better, since the published online „live streams“ are from small private receivers and are probably situated less well AFAIK.
As an alternative, couldn't BA have flown the Newark flight (with passengers and a replacement pilot), diverting to St. Johns to drop him off?
@ Andrew LeWinter -- Two things. First, I assume the airline just didn't have a spare pilot available, since transatlantic flights are typically staffed at minimums. Furthermore, at that point the flight attendants would have timed out, since the plane had been on the ground in St. John's for many hours.
Would American Airlines loan them a couple pilots since they are both in One world alliance?
Crew from one airline cannot fly another.
How is the pilot doing?
@ Robert -- If anyone knows, I'd love to know as well, though I haven't seen any update. Hopefully they're okay!
I hope the pilot who became incapacitated was able to recover, if not completely, well enough to resume near normal daily life.
Any info on how the passengers scheduled to fly on BA180 were reassigned or taken care of?
@ Anon -- There are so many daily flights between the New York area and London, so I assume passengers were rebooked on flights throughout the day. Of course it's not ideal, but given the circumstances, it probably minimized inconvenience.
Passengers on both the cancelled and diverted flights would also have been entitled to £520 compensation under UK261 regulations. Ka-ching!
A medical emergency would fall under extraordinary circumstances. So certainly not applicable for the diverted flight.
The flight that was cancelled maybe, but it will also depend on how quick they can get the passengers to their final destination. It could be only 50%, but it could also be deemed extraordinary.
Actually, crew sickness does not always fall under "extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken". It has been ruled that the crew are employees within airline's control and therefore the airline needs to proactively take appropriate measures to ensure their fitness, and staff adequate crew to ensure operational continuity.
Logical or not, them's the rules and the passengers can claim. I've claimed for two family members...
Actually, crew sickness does not always fall under "extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken". It has been ruled that the crew are employees within airline's control and therefore the airline needs to proactively take appropriate measures to ensure their fitness, and staff adequate crew to ensure operational continuity.
Logical or not, them's the rules and the passengers can claim. I've claimed for two family members last year in similar circumstances (sick pilot at outstation resulting in 8 hour delay) and after a short back-and-forth BA paid out.
Absolutely not on a medical diversion. But thats all people think of nowadays. Selfish morons who couldn’t care less about the welfare of someone who fell ill. Live the way you went straight into the competition without a thought on how the crew was. Could have died, but at least there’s EUR600.
What’s with the hostility of your posts, Icarus? It is possible to care about the pilot’s wellbeing and also want to be compensated for the logistical headache. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Scary situation, hope the pilot is OK, and glad that flights are operated by 2 human pilots. Gary Leff wants them replaced with AI, can you believe that?