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BA passengers told aircraft about to crash

1 September 2010

Imagine you are just settling down to read the best seller you've carefully selected from the book shop at the airport and suddenly an announcement comes over the PA that the aircraft is about to crash. This is just what happened, on a recent BA flight from London to Hong Kong, when a false alarm notified passengers they were about to plummet into the sea!

According to a Bloomberg report, the Boeing 747 was travelling over the North Sea, when an automated female voice announced: "This is an emergency announcement. We may shortly need to make an emergency landing on water."

Naturally, the incident sparked a sense of panic amongst the 275 passengers. "We all thought we were going to die," stated Michelle Lord to The Sun newspaper.

British Airways has since apologised for any "undue distress" suffered by the passengers.

The Sun reported that the pilot hit the wrong button. But Bloomberg said a BA spokesman notified them that the button isn't accessible to pilots in the cockpit, though it can be activated in a number of ways.

"Our cabin crew immediately made an announcement following the message advising customers that it was played in error and that the flight would continue as normal," spokesman Richard Goodfellow said, according to Bloomberg.

Reuters reports an investigation is under way to determine whether the mistake was human error or a computer glitch.

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