By Bikram Vohra
BA flight 3271 has no precedent. How it was scheduled for Dusseldorf and landed up in Edinburgh in Scotland may contribute to a hilarious rendition and great humour it makes a dog’s breakfast of security and safety. And defies the whole system of commercial operations. Think of it. Passengers have checked in with passports since it is an international flight. They have shopped duty-free. Cabin crew have manifested for Dusseldorf, and their duty roster says so.
Then you have the crew on the flight deck, and they have also been so rostered, and they have to feed in their flight plan before Air Traffic Control gives clearance to take off. Okay, doors closed, everyone strapped in their seats, and the hostess announced we are going to Dusseldorf. Someone tells you the flight timing before taking off. Both are about the same at ninety minutes. Obviously, the pilots do not hear it.
Except we are not going to Dusseldorf. Edinburgh, which should not even be a blip on the radar, is now the heart of the matter. The plane, an Embraer 170, trundles onto the runway, stops at the apron, the checklist for takeoff is ticked, and it gathers speed. V1, V2, rotate. Flaps up, gear up, Heathrow this is BA 3271 bound for Edinburgh, seek clearance to flight level five zero.
BA 3271 cleared to flight level, just a minute, hold it, did you say Edinburgh, guys, guys, you are going to Dusseldorf? You have got it wrong.
None of that happened. She just flew on unchecked. And here is where it starts to get unfunny. Technically, we now have a renegade plane in the sky flying where it should not be and that no alarm is sounded is a cause for great concern. Passengers looking out of the portholes are thinking, hmmm, odd, we are going north to go east, and for 90 minutes, this aircraft is cheerfully being ignored by ground control who should be saying, hello, hello, who are you and what are you doing up there. A plane that is where it is not supposed to be is a code blue crisis situation; the first thing is, has it been hijacked?
Since BA is euphemistically referring to this colossal snafu as an involuntary stopover in the capital of Scotland and saying nothing else, the only semi-logical explanation one can give is that both pilots got onto the wrong aircraft actually believed they were winging their way to Edinburgh. The disconnect from the cabin crew and passengers onboarding may have meant the subject of destination never came up. They actually filed for Edinburgh while the cabin crew and passengers believed otherwise. Even then, it should never have been cleared for takeoff. BA has said it was faulty paperwork. It states the pilot was not lost, and he executed the flight route from London City Airport to Edinburgh, Scotland, as was indicated on the paperwork.
But how this comedy of errors unfolded from the point of view of failsafe systems of ground to air communications and the absence of any alert at the airport or the slot makes for a frightening precedent. While one can be grateful that there was no damage or loss of life, I am not laughing because there is genuinely nothing to laugh about.
