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747 Image: RingwayEnthusiast Own work
747 Hangar Image: Richard Vandervord http://www.airliners.net/photo/Britis...


This is the story of british Airways flight 888. On the 11th of may 1976 a british airways 747 was on its way from london to melbourne with stops in bahrain bangkok and kuala lumpur. Fun fact this flight was operated by the BOAD or the british airways overseas division, I did not know that they had an entire separate division for their overseas operations. We join flight 888 on at night as it makes its way from bangkok to kuala lumpur with 104 people on board. The captain was the one flying and tonight he’d be landing on runway 15 at Kuala lumpur’s Subang international airport . Before the plane started its descent into Kuala Lumpur the crew went over the VOR approach to runway 15.

This approach called for them to overfly the VBA VOR, it was situated 15 nm from the threshold of runway 15 and 1 nm to the north of the extended centerline. They had to pass the VBA vor at atleast 2000 feet after that they could head towards the NM beacon which was on the runway’s extended centerline. You had to maintain 860 feet as you passed over the NM beacon and only start descending when you had the runway insight and when you were on the glideslope. With the briefing out of the way the crew calibrated their altimeters and their radio altimeters, their radio altimeters would start warning them when they were at about 866 feet above the ground. It would start making a sound at 866 feet and then as they descended it would grow louder till they hit 791 feet.

Soon the approach was under way the plane over flew the VBA VOR and the runway lights shone in the dark landscape, guiding the plane towards the airport. Having passed the VBA VOR the plane descended down to about 860 feet near their decision altitude. A warning sound played indicating that they were near their decision height. As this warning buzzed in the background the captain called for flaps 20 and for the gear to be lowered. Flaps are these surfaces that extend from the trailing edge of the wing, they help the plane generate more lift at low speeds. They come out in increments, for example at the flaps one setting they come out a little bit then at the flaps 5 setting a little bit more, and even more at flaps 10. You get the idea. As the gears came down one of the landing gear warning light became dislodged from its holder socket and so the flight engineer had to verify the status of the gear on his panel. Thus disrupting his checklist. The captain doesn't notice this but no one extended the flaps to 20. Neither pilot replied with flaps 05 confirming that they had done what the captain had asked nor did the captain follow up on this.

As the plane approached the NM beacon the plane was carrying a bit too much speed as no one had extended the flaps, the flaps generate a lot of drag, ideally the speed should be a bit slower, so now the captain was doing three things at once, he had to line the plane up with the runway, maintain altitude and find a way to lose some speed.

The plane was nearing the NM beacon and slowly the huge 747 started descending, the pilots in the cockpit were unaware of what their plane was doing. The plane overflies the NM beacon and the captain calls for flaps 25, the first officer asks in a confused voice “25 from 10?” remember he had not heard the call to extend the flaps to 20. So hes confused about the captain skipping flaps 20. But the captain didnt reply to the first officers query. In the cockpit each pilot went back to what they had been doing, the captain flew the plane, the first officer