David Learmount/LONDON
A British Airways Boeing 747-400 with 398 people on board stalled, rolled 94° to the left and lost 7,000ft (2,150m) height when a cockpit intruder grabbed the right hand control column and tried to wrest it from the first officer. The incident happened during a London-Nairobi, Kenya, night flight on 29 December. The airline is running a PC simulation of the incident to gain a picture of what happened.
BA confirms that the 747 was over Sudan when Paul Mukonyi, a large Kenyan man suffering from a paranoiac panic attack, barged into the flight deck at a moment when there was only one pilot at the controls, First Officer Phil Watson.
BA says that the man threw himself across the centre pedestal, ending up in Watson's lap with his hands on the control wheel. In the struggle for control the autopilot was disconnected. The co-pilot's view of the flight instrument panel was completely obscured by Mukonyi's torso, and the aircraft pitched up 26°, with bank oscillating 30° right and left. Despite autothrottle applying full power, the indicated airspeed (IAS) quickly reduced to 165kt as the aircraft climbed to 40,000ft from the cruising level of 37,000ft. It then stalled and the nose and left wing dropped. The bank increased to a maximum of 94° and the aircraft's nose dropped 20° below the horizon, the aircraft losing 10,000ft in 30s.
Capt Bill Hagan was in the crew rest compartment at the time of the intrusion, and First Officer Richard Webb, who was substituting for the captain in the left hand seat, had left the flight deck briefly.
The captain was the first to intervene, gouging Mukonyi's eyes. With Webb's help, Mukonyi was shifted enough to allow Watson to see the flight instruments and initiate recovery, but there were nose-up control inputs as he was pulled away.
BA general manager flight operations, Lloyd Cromwell Griffiths, says that Watson's recovery of control was classic. He smoothly rolled the wings level and then pitched the nose up to regain level flight. Cromwell Griffiths says that 2.3g pitch up was applied, and the IAS did not exceed 240kt.
Hagan regained his seat, made a call on the air-to-air frequency to inform other traffic that the aircraft was not at its cleared level, then informed the distressed passengers of the cockpit intrusion, adding that the aircraft was sound.
Some 2h later the 747 landed at Nairobi with only minor injuries on board. After engineering checks the aircraft took off on its next leg to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
BA ascribes the rapid recovery of control to its pilots being drilled in recovery from extreme attitudes during their recurrent training.
Source: Flight International
