British Airways's Night Operations - Inside British Airways - S01 EP3 - Airplane Documentary

[Music] a British Airways flight takes off somewhere around the globe every 90 seconds we fight to more than 200 cities around the world over 45 million passengers a year a very very big operation once the world's favorite Airline good morning recent years have seen ba facing some turbulent times fresh allegations of dirty tricks massive disruption is thought to have been caused by a power surge at a when we fail of course we get criticism the important thing is to learn from those mistakes and quickly competition in the skies has never been tougher and the stakes have never been higher competitors make us better ba has to provide a better service but now in its centinary year the company is setting off on a journey of its own it's going to AR a bit early earlier the better to transform itself back into the worldclass airline it once was Everything Has Changed apart from our salt and pepper it's a tough world now now in aviation so we need to move on as British Airways begins its multi-billion pound makeover our cameras have been allowed exclusive access to all areas of the business from the factories where the airline buys its state-of-the-art Jets I just think airplanes are beautiful NE can't fly until we've we've completed this process to the engineers who keep them in the air when you're working on a plane that weighs 300 tons there's going to be problems as we go through if you can play an Xbox you can push out a plane from trouble at the top I get pissed off when people criticize ba if someone criticizes ba they're criticizing me to the teams on the ground one of the machines has broken down do you know how to tear this off I can't turnar it off and the people who keep the passengers smiling if we don't deliver the airline doesn't deliver in this episode can the airline's crack team of Engineers fix a hanger full of faulty aircraft in just one night there a always a danger that we might have cancellations and we absolutely don't want that the remote controlled robots helping to shift 60 ton plans provided they do as they're told run a little wide there Sarah and a Race Against Time Will Salan get this 70 at 7 fueled loaded and ready to depart on schedule we need please some toilet rolls and some soap there's no soap on [Music] board every day the airline is responsible for around 800 flights in and out of its UK airports making sure these planes depart safely and on time is vital punctuality is crucial for any Airline operating anywhere those that are obsessed with punctuality they measure in seconds they know that if they um position a particular vehicle in a particular way they're going to get an extra 40 seconds I've been part of these conversations because 40 seconds on every flight on every departure 800 times a day makes a huge difference so every second counts a recent survey saw ba Place 10th in the world for punctuality with almost 80% of flights leaving or arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time and the airline is determined to improve these figures crucial to this is their army of adms or aircraft dispatch managers whose job it is to ensure that arriving flights are disembarked refueled cleaned and then reloaded with passengers luggage and cargo without causing any delay Bravo konia which is coming in as the 142 and going out as the5 Salan Ellis is one of 200 adms employed by the airline at Heathrow she's responsible for making sure that everything gets done properly safely and on schedule I will be managing the activities at the aircraft side and uh managing those that come anywhere near the aircraft so there's quite a lot involved in it all today Salan is responsible for flight ba 142 arriving from Delhi but in just a few hours this plane becomes flight ba5 so Salan has her work cut out and already there's a problem unfortunately it's slightly delayed so we might have a few passengers that are missing connections and so on and so forth as well as this Salan has just found out that on board are a large number of passengers who require extra help we have 34 wheelchair customers coming into it could potentially cause a problem if we haven't got enough wheelchair providers right with just a few minutes left before the flight arrives San's next job is to make sure that the area outside the gate is clear and safe looking for any sort of bits that could be ingested into the engine uh you know any sort of Hazards really I'm happy I just want to check we've got someone to cover these lights how are you all right are you going to do the lights for me darling if I switch them on Swit them on okay thank you right I'm just activating the guidance lights if you look up here got the 78 7900 and as the aircraft pulls on stand that will count down the meters for the captain so when it gets to zero it will tell him to stop it will also guide him just to make sure he's on the stand straight with such a complicated job getting things to run smoothly isn't always easy it could be very unpredictable you think that you've got everything buttoned down and then you only need one thing to go wrong you never really can tell at 950 and 20 minutes behind schedule flight ba 142 finally arrives now it's up to Sally and the team to try and make up for lost time our aim is to get these Jetties on within a couple of minutes especially if this this one's late knock on the door so they know hello how are you coming up some surprising news threatens Salan schedule customer service manager didn't tell me when he open the door so that may delay them coming off how these mechanical Marvels keep the planes flying at the touch of a button almost made it and with seven plans to fix are the engineer team about to blow it Best Way Le test just off on the [Music] end as well as their Long Haul Fleet the airline runs a short Hall operation 140 smaller aircraft that fly on routs of 5 hours or less some of these planes can make three or four different flights every day so sticking to the schedule is vitally important Beyond safety the number one consideration is how can we coordinate that departure and that arrival in a way that we can make it even more efficient if you're going to travel to a meeting and you're going to travel for an hour for two hours you really need to be getting there on time but aircraft are complex machines and any technical issues can cause Havoc with the shedule the airline has a highly skilled team of Engineers who operate through the night to make sure the full complement of short Hall aircraft are available each and every morning we are a casualty environment we we don't want any aircraft here we want them all ready to fly for our customers this is the fleet support unit based at Heathrow Airport every evening the overnight team of skilled Engineers learn how many aircraft need repairing and when they're needed back in the air we have a meeting before each shift where it's the day shift handing over to us exactly all the aircraft that we've got to work tonight the work that's required on them and then what we've got to do to make them serviceable tonight's uh numbers wise it's pretty typical we've got seven aircraft if we don't get them out on time we might have cancellations and that's a really bad place to be but although we have this massive urgency to make sure we're delivering these aircrafts our customers Fly Above All Else the aircraft have to be safe so if our Engineers aren't happy that the aircraft's not safe we will cancel the the flight once the workload is locked down the team need to make a plan for the night to make sure they prioritize which aircraft gets fixed and when the first job we have Tango November Delta our brand new Neo that's going to be coming into the hanger so we're going to tow that one in it's actually got a problem one of its engines and these engines are used to provide compressed air um to power the pneumatic systems on the aircraft when they arrive in the hanger each aircraft is allocated a licensed aircraft engineer or Lae who is is responsible for diagnosing overseeing and signing off all work done on that plane there's been a for message popped up uh so the crew report of that brought it into the hanger and we going to tr Sho tonight to find out what's wrong with defects uh and errors like this it can come from multiple sources so um until we've got into that engine and having a look Round We it could be anything luckily for the team Ian has a hunch and heads straight to where he thinks the problem lies theault I've I think I've had before I believe to be this pipe here uh so we're going to disconnect this pipe and leak check it check there's no holes in it which it's been in the past and the quickest and most effective way of testing this pipe is surprisingly low Tech just do your fing on that and then Best Way Le test it it's just take him off on the end it's there so uh as I run my hand down F the air coming out through the braed cable there shouldn't be anything leaking out of here so that will throw the message off to the computer it'll sense less than it should be so we'll replace this pipe and I should fix it hopefully now we found the issue uh I'll go into the parts catalog it's a picture of every single item on the aircraft uh we find a f number for that that pipe and we'll order a new one up hopefully we'll have one locally in stock if we do we'll get it quickly and fit it and then we can run the engine and test if we get the fault back if the pipe isn't available locally the repair could be delayed and while Ian contacts the parts department Phil is conducting what's known as a daily a 13-point visual inspection that every single aircraft undergoes every day it's to try and prevent delays on the ram I mean simple stuff like this if it's all checked every day then you don't have to worry about it during the operation so just looking for any impact damage along the Leading Edge from any birds or things like that you just get to know what to look for so I mean instantly you can normally see if there's a dent or you know you're looking at the shine on the on the paperwork and you can see and Phil's attention to detail has identified another problem I checked the tires for wear this tire is almost bowled across here so we'll be replacing that later on tonight it's just wearing te from General every time it lands it script about the tire so again he'll order it from the same stores we keep stock locally for this aircraft um lot of that get nice new one and refit that it's the whole wheel assembly that we changed rather than just the tire so we need to remove the whole wheel from the axle and that means jacking up a 65 ton plan so to Jack the plane up just a glorified um heavy duty trolley Jack basically which goes onto the bottom of the undercarriage [Music] leg simple as [Music] that so with the tire sorted back at the engine the new part has arrived one p so D will now refit same position as it was and then once finish we close the engine back up we can go test it so I just SL it in you got two points which is connected to this one in the top and one here is somewhere at the bottom so going to seve it in and then find which way the PE would go properly and with the new pipe fitted it just remains for Ian to sign off yeah so once st's finished um he showed me what he's done I've checked that over so now I'm just having to quick check around our tools have been left inside there's nothing else wrong in the area so it's just a piece of Mind thing before we close the engine I'll close it up the only way to test this engine to see if we've clear the seat is to start the engine so this particular component needs air rushing through it so that to get that we need to start it the only way of getting enough air through the new part is to run the engine at takeoff power and the team can't afford any setbacks if this doesn't pass the test we've got to go back to the dra board a b this is critical back at Terminal 5 aircraft dispatch manager Salan has a problem on her hands with only 3 hours to go before the plane departs for Japan she receives some last minute information about a passenger we have on board um an unnotified uh customer who actually needs to be lifted out of their seat and into a wheelchair but when she arrives at the plan in it looks like the crew have sprung into action oh the gentleman's here you've managed okay okay let me go and the gentleman's here my darl thank you morning guys good morning the crew have managed to um bring gentleman off in the iron chair that they have on the aircraft so these guys will be able to just transfer the gentleman into his chair thankfully as soon as it's confirmed that all the passengers have disembarked Salan can board the plane and begin the process of getting it ready for its next flight first job is to check there are no technical problems hi guys any issues not at the moment not at the moment just having maintenance Okay cool so what's going to happen next hopefully the cleaners will will arrive as you can see it's been a 9-hour flight and uh it does need a bit of spring cleaning I think really really it was an overnight flight hence all the pillows blankets all over the place we have left to go now um 1 hour 50 we have cleaners and on the other side we have Caterers and we have Caterers here at the middle door as well already cargo is being dropped at the rear of the aircraft this is Cargo for the outbound flight every year the airline handles over half a million tons of cargo through its Air Freight business carrying everything from life-saving medicine to family pets on San's flight to Tokyo today the team have to deal with 5,000 kilos of cargo including a consignment of fresh flowers and that's on top of 3,700 kilos of luggage with loading underway salanne turns her attention to making sure she has all of the 230 meals needed for this flight the food is delivered fresh from the catering company and loaded onto the plane these have got seals on but it'll have it's just just saying it's got the slight number on it I mean I know it's been done yes is right now that's light numberers there so I'm happy now that the Caterers have been on you can see here we've got catering if I can open up catering here all looks very fresh so with the food safely stored away San now has to sign off on the cleaning before any passengers are allowed to board it's all very quiet this looks as if it's kind of ready to go looks good it's all clean and it's all cated so um that's good that's very good so it's all wa waiting for crew and passengers back up at the gate the boarding team are also getting ready for the arrival of passengers for flight ba5 morning everybody afternoon even how are you new self boarding Gates yep yeah cool we've got the team uh we've got customers we've call the customers across we're just setting up and um I'll wait for your call I'll give you a call yeah um just in case we're not quite ready but I'm anticipating we will be but with less than an hour before the flight is due to leave for Tokyo San's list of jobs seems endless I'm going to go down to our little PT downstairs I'm going to prep the flight print a load sheet out for the captain um hopefully catch up with the loading team and hopefully we should have some cabin pro at this stage even the slightest glitch could put the whole schedule in Jeopardy and as ever the clock is ticking just under an hour now so it'll be all go from here on here I coming up will a vital engine test throw a spanner in the works for need if there is a fail test we could be put under real pressure then with the remote controlled robots tow the line at Heath oh almost made it almost and aircraft dispatch manager salian gets bogged down with paperwork we need please some toilet rolls and some soap there's no soap on board [Music] in the fleet support unit the team are in the middle of another busy night there are seven aircraft in for overnight maintenance and the airline needs as many as possible ready for the first wave of flights out of heathow in the morning our customers expect us to be punctual and our entire flying program is built around us operating on time and so for us to be able to to keep to those schedules we've got to deliver the punctual operation otherwise we haven't got enough resources it's the early RS and Neil and the team are managing to keep to their busy schedule but a call from the operations team is about to throw a spanner in the works oh yeah we'll see what we can do all right uh Keith can you just go see the guys to see if we can get that Neo up a bit earlier we just had they've had a bit of an issue over at the terminal so Steve just phoned us from Main trol and said that there's a there's an issue over in the terminals with one of the aircraft that he's dealing with at the moment and he's asked if we can get an aircraft up sooner to cover the risk of this problem um so we're basically just going to go and see if we can deliver the Neo earlier if the problem with the faulty plan at Terminal 5 can't be resolved there's a very real possibility that Neil will need to get the Neo ready to fly earlier than planned and that means taking it straight to the engine test area or as it's known the run pen the way this engine run Pen's been built there's a large slope at the back and that allows all the thrust that these engines produce to be diverted upwards and Away safely without doing any damage so Ian and his team whilst he's carrying out this engine test he's going to be looking at the instruments and particularly down the center of the cockpit there's a couple of screens that will indicate to the pilots any error messages that are on the aircraft and so we're hoping that there's going to be no messages on there and that we've got a successful uh test test and that means we've got serviceable aircraft if there is a fail test we could be put under real pressure then because then there's a chance that we may not deliver for the morning flight um so we really need this test to come good we take it up to about 75 to 80% of its maximum power which unle around 25,000 per engine so it's quite High uh aircraft will bounce around a little bit but we'll have our feet firmly on the brakes so turn all the fuel pumps on dry the engines step one uh Phil clear start number two I'm going to sit on the brakes [Music] forward it bounces around a bit and the guy stood outside the brave man trusting other not come up the [Music] brakes come back [Music] down P Break on and braks off so that was around takeoff power we had no Faults we would have got message popping up in here I'm to wor about aircraft fixed it's fantastic it's a great result for us ke ttn is serviceable ready for the morning yeah done this is one down we've got six to go over the next 3 hours Neil and the team managed to shift another four plans off the casualty list and this means you'll have some good news for the regular 3:00 a.m. call over with the rest of the airlines operations team the 3:00 call over is critical that's where the Ops will determine what aircraft they've got to use for service it's our point where we then deliver and say what we are confident that we will be producing at 600 that morning right morning everybody it's Steven Stu in main trol who's there from the FSU in the FSU all right then Neil give us a rundown of your aircraft please okay a soft uniform pop of whiskey that'll be good for the morning we had uniform uniform golf the airline operates around 140 short Hall aircraft 40 of which are based at he but if one is out of commission it's not necessarily as simple as swapping it with another available plane we have five different types and they're all different sizes and they take different passenger loads so in simple sense if one of the larger aircraft doesn't come up we may not have an aircraft with enough capacity for our passengers and that's the sort of issue we would have who's there from T5 good morning Steve it's Bruce and another Steve morning Bruce any issues yes we got um a couple of issues just a little concern and EO Lima chasing that up with the flight crew during that call you would have heard Bruce talking about his problem with Echo to lemur now when I pick things up like that early in the evening I look around for other opportunities and I recognize that Neil may have been out to produce his aircraft one and a half hours early we've got tango November Delta this one we've managed to bring forward uh it will be able to at 4: this morning so that will be good all right thanks so much everybody have a good morning yeah so we just got off the uh 0300 call over and we found out that we've got two casualties coming over so we're into action stations really because the aircraft that we've got left to deliver tonight they have to be delivered so although the Neo is going to be delivered early NE and the team have got a lot more work to do [Music] yet as part of the turnaround process here at Heath Terminal 5 an army of remote controlled robots are helping to reduce delays to short hole departures these have been used right across t5a building now so uh there's one of these on every stand there's probably about 80 departures a day uh and each individual motor talk will do anywhere between 10 and 20 Push backs on each stand the push back process is a vital part of getting planes into the air as they have no reverse gear aircraft need to be maneuvered away from the gate or pushed back before they can use the power of their engines to move forward before the motor to was introduced the dispatcher would call up for an aircraft movements tug to push the aircraft back but if that aircraft tug is engaged or delayed on another departure obviously that's going to hold up the uh operation so using these machines to assist with the short Hall departures frees up tugs for the larger aircraft but moving planes loaded with passengers and fuel is a high stakes business today try ramp supervisor Sarah is at Heath for her final training session before she attempts her first solo push back on the 60 ton Airbus a319 Sarah's been on training with me now for seven days and today is going to be the day where she gets to push an aircraft out without me walking beside her I'm excited because obviously not everyone gets to push out a multi-million pound plane you know but nervous it's a multi-million pound plane I'd say it's quite a big moment yeah cuz they kind of rely on us to say left the B right a bit and stop there or watch out for this or watch out for that and basically she's going to be on her own so it's going to be a little bit scary for her he's always been there so once he leaves me that's it I'm in trouble flight delays can be costly to an airline and using these remote controlled Vehicles has reduced push back related delays by 70% it's um controlled by a remote control uh obviously you've got forward and backward control and the right stick does the left and the right hand and but cuz it's designed to actually push the aircraft back the controls are opposite so if you want the motor to to go right it actually goes left so you've got to be mindful of uh of that the area in the middle is the Cradle area which connects onto the aircraft nose wheel it's got various hydraulics in there um which obviously open the Cradle which lower the Cradle uh which operate the paddles Which clamp down onto the top of the aircraft tires and it's obviously got Hydraulics that lift the aircraft up as well but before trainy Sarah can fly solo she has to prove to instructor Martin that she can keep her cool under pressure by completing this dummy Run Okay Sarah what I want you to do today is actually maneuver the motor top out of the parking Bay and SL them around the two cones and park it in the opposite Bay okay okay let's go for it yeah let's give it a try let's try it nice and slowly do is it yep the idea is is to use nice slow inputs on the control sticks and then the motor top reacts in a nice smooth Manner and a much more controlled manner as well okay as soon as that level with the cone put the turn on well done close as you can get without touching it I'm not touching ammo they touch it it and round you go oh run a little wide there Sarah a almost made it Well Done Sarah how'd you feel after that I'm getting there I'm picking it up going forward is a lot easier than going backwards so far so good but has Sarah's confidence grown enough to do the same thing with a plane attached cones you can hit with a plane there's no [Music] States back at the departures gate salion Ellis is in charge of getting flight ba5 ready to take off for Tokyo in less than an hour's time I am looking to see if we have a slot I'm looking to see how many flight crew we have the cargo is loading and the pl has been cleaned and restocked with food and water so her next job is to make sure there is enough fuel on board for it 6,000 M trip 67 P of fuel this is going to take so a fair amount we're almost full I think we got two empty seats left at the moment um that's about it really so I'm going to go upstairs I'll see the fueler first um I shall go upstairs check with the cabin crew CU we want to start boarding in about 6 minutes so let's go hello 67 please do you want that might as well okay all right all I did I confirmed the fuel figure with him now he should have already picked it up on his iPad but I just wanted to make sure because sometimes you might find that he doesn't know or there's a discrepancy so that's all I did so he now knows he's got six seven tons to go on board now that the fuel load has been confirmed Salan heads back to the plan to meet the crew we're going upstairs catch the cabin crew um agree a time with them for boarding which as I say should be very shortly all of a sudden it just starts to go and more and more people start to appear 11 of us today 11 of you today smashing yeah and three FL obviously 11 and three um what I think of it uh we need some more soap soap on in the toilets and toilet rolls toilet rolls tises things TOs all right my darling no problem okay we should start up there in 2 minutes sure no problem will that be all right with you I'm sure will I'll just check with the crew and um I'll give them a shout and I'll say a couple couple of minutes and then we get going so 3 and 11 that's it okay thanks although the aircraft is now ready to start receiving passengers San's job is far from over couple of minutes isn't it is it 6 minutes past Yeah couple of minutes and send them down my lovely that's great thank you than you bye byebye right I'm now going to go and see the flight crew hello hi hi it's looking good actually we're just about to start boarding we've got all the freight out there the loaders are here um there's your load sheet uh my number's on there should you need me all right I'll see you in a bit okay thanks boing perfect I'm doing your toilet rolls and your soap now okay I'll go and release to you hello it's Sally here I'm on the5 which is Bravo Kila Romeo on 534 we need please some toilet rolls and some soap there's no soap on board thank you very much bye-bye Sally an now needs to get back to the departure gate to check that the passengers have started to come through boarding is underway we did start on time 44 minutes before departure so it's looking good but sometimes looks can be deceptive I've just noticed we have one of our wheelchair passengers traveling today has their own wheelchair with them that will have to go in down into the hold so I'd rather like to get them here early so we can take it down and I can find out what kind of wheelchair it is I'm assuming it's a manual but never assume anything it could it could end up being it could be an electric one which case we'll need to do some rearranging Le passengers can cause serious problems for the airline it's their policy to start offloading missing passengers bags 12 minutes before departure and if customers arrive once that process has started they won't be able to fly so it's vital Salan tracks down her absent passenger how we doing Harvey with these wheelchair to G told him to make a call in the lounge tell him to come here hope is it just a manual wheelchair it's not saying electric we're trying to track the wheelchairs because if we get a wheelchair to the gate late and it needs to go into the hole it does delay the loading so we're going to try and get them try and get them down here I hope not too long and as well as the missing wheelchair passenger Salan is also on the lookout for a further 48 passengers who haven't arrived yet will she be able to find them all in time or will the flight have to be [Music] delayed coming up will a last minute technical glitch cause chaos for sanne one of the machines that the loading team used has broken down which will delay loading slightly and is the night shift luck about to take a turn for the worse so um not quite how we had [Music] planned on the other side of the airport triny ramp supervisor Sarah is about to fly solo for the very first time as she attempts to maneuver the Airbus a319 with a remote controlled pushback vehicle Sarah's every move will be assessed by instructor Martin Cox who's been operating these machines since they were introduced to the airline in 2017 I was a bit skeptical at first but as soon as I got to use it I was uh quite quite impressed of it to be honest and while Martin was also impressed by Sarah's performance as she navigated around the traffic cones now he needs to be confident she can safely lift and maneuver an actual aircraft I'm looking that she's um not doing things too fast she's taking her time and that she's doing everything in a safe and controlled manner the first stage is to attach it safely and securely to the aircraft's nose [Music] wheel I Reon that's one of the hardest parts because if you remove it and and it's not completely align you can take the tire with it that part was done well let's see stage two will you keep your eye on the steering limitation marks yeah keep it nice and slow okay way you go just correct it so if the toil starts to go to the right just steer to the left and vice versa okay and once the uh main Wheels across the double wi Lins then we'll start to put a bit right turn on to okay start the [Music] T it's on the line it's on the line she's got the nose B on the center line so she's she's done really well there with the aircraft in the right position Sarah can breathe a sigh of relief but what's the verdict on her performance congratulations on your first push Sarah great job it was good I think I've done really well I'm proud of myself mine's proud so I'm happy happy I'm happy Sarah's done really well I'm really pleased she's been listening to what I've been telling her and she's taking it all on board and uh yeah she just demonstrated a perfect push there so big well done to you Sarah round you go less speed more steering he'll always be in my ear like he might not be there but he will always be in my ear you know he's in my head now he's in my head how did it feel doing it on your own it's [Music] easy back at gate 34 aircraft dispatch manager Salan Ellis is on the hunt for missing passengers um we still have 52 passengers to board and then a welcome site this is good news seeing all these people coming down now but now it's not just absent passengers causing sallyanne problems how far are you into it all okay thanks bye-bye there you go you see best laid plans one of the machines that the loading team used has broken down so they've had to go and get another one which will delay loading slightly but although the a problem for the loading team outside it looks like sallyanne is having better luck at the gate hi there how are you hi finally she's located her missing passenger okay you all right or has she 32 you're going on which flight Seattle 49 no you're on the wrong flight I'm afraid but at the last moment going to Narita yeah okay do you want to come straight round here please that's great the first customer was for the wrong flight they've just got married they're going on a month's holiday including cruises and going to Japan and Russia so it's nice to see thank you very much it's a pleasure with boarding complete have the cargo team finished loading in spite of their faulty kit they're just finishing off so I'm happy with that and with that good news it's back up to the plean to confirm everything with the crew it's a lot of up and down and me with a bad back as well but it's all right did you get your soap and lovely lovely thanks ever so much have a good day see you soon nice to do business thanks bye-bye right that's that let's get this off finally after one last visual inspection flight ba5 to Tokyo leaves the game it right on schedule it has been a good team effort you know everyone's done a smashing job and you can't ask us that than that really can you so uh good day in the fleet support unit the overnight shift is drawing to a close the team have had a successful night delivering six plans back to the airline the last aircraft on the casualty list is uniform Oscar golf Andy and his team are are looking at number one engine over here it's got high oil consumption so we're trying to find an oil leak with it we found one earlier our dayshift found an oil leak we take the spinner off that was leaking under there so they've changed the sealing there that's cured it as a followup we have to do uh an internal inspection using our boroscope equipment so boroscope is a fiber optic camera with a lens on the end so it can go inside a hole peroscope point in the engine and we can see inside the engine see the blades internally in the engine without having to pull it all apart so through the bleed Port I can get access to the lp compressor which is the front section of the engine I'm trying to get to the bottom of the blade and then see if there's any oil right so this this is the lp compressor the very tip of it and then we're just seeing to make sure it's clean as you can see it's very clear very clean and making sure there's no oil deposits on this and this is a good one so Alex are you ready to turn yeah so just turn very slowly just for now right there we go and you can see the lp compressor turning around and then we just check all the blades nice and slowly and we're looking for like an oily run on the tips but this is dry this is clean this is good yeah it looks good Alex thank you that's that that's all good so with the oil leak repaired and after a thorough internal inspection the obligatory engine test seems like a mere formality but when the results come back the news is disappointing we still got a leak and it's come back in for further investigation okay okay so um not quite how we had planned but we're um we uh safety's first we've got to make sure the aircraft's safe so you know Andy's got to be happy to sign it off so we've got to do a bit more investigation luckily enough because we've delivered so many other aircraft tonight the operation's not affected so this is this is just us we wanted all all seven it's uh looks like it may only be six but still still a good result it's now up to Neil to let the Ops control team know that there'll be one playing short in the morning uh the Lae on uniform o golf just informed us that the engine has failed its run runs so it's going to have to come back we were straight on the phone to Ops and to main trol to say um uog is not going to make it this morning and so they were aware we did have three standby aircraft so with this one um failing its test it's dropped us down to two standby aircraft so we still got a large safety margin within the uh operation today so while the night shift might have ended in disappointment with six out of seven faulty aircraft out of the hanger and safely back in service it's not surprising that Neil is proud of his team's performance the Neo was a great result the team did brilliantly on it we got a really early find on it they worked quickly efficiently and safely and they got a superb result and it actually turned out that the operation really needed that aircraft and so having that early result meant that we could offer it back sooner to make sure that there was no Services uncovered this morning I'm done but then do it all again [Music] tonight next time on inside British Airways will the arrival of the airline's first new type of plane in six years of a bumpy Landing that's going to be a bit of a challenge their design team their engineering need to assess and and come up with a design solution for that there's turbulence ahead as the flight crew get to grips with a new simulator go around wi ahead and the airlines HQ prepares for a royal flying visit the queen is in the building ladies and gents we have a outfit which I think goes with the blue caret that's [Music] okay

Channel: Banijay Documentaries

Views: 120,754

Keywords: Air Travel, Aircraft Maintenance, Airline Industry, Airline Operations, Airlines, Airplane Documentary, Aviation, Aviation Documentary, BA Engineers, Banijay, Banijay Documentaries, Behind the Scenes, British Airways, Flight Operations, Pilots, Punctuality, Travel Documentaries

Id: 1rV_mqcfSDg

Length: 44min 7sec (2647 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 29 2023