British Airways 301

British Airways 301 was a regular scheduled flight from London Heathrow Airport, London, UK, to Cairo International Airport. On July 26th 2023, the aircraft operating the route, an Airbus A320-251 bearing the registration G-TTNL, suffered a forced emergency landing at the airport after having a loss of electrical power. This flight is the second hull loss of the Airbus A320neo.

The failure occurred over Cairo, Egypt, at 23:09 on July 26th 2023, about two hours after takeoff. There were no fatalities, however fourteen people sustained minor injuries, 8 of which were due to the landing. The remainder of the injuries were caused during the evacuation.

Upon inspection after arriving at Cairo International Airport, the aircraft was found to have received major damage to the left engine cowling. This presumabley led to an ingestion of a material, which caused an engine failure. After false diagnosis of the issue, the other engine was initially presumed to be damaged, which caused the pilots to isolate the wrong engine. This led to a critical loss of electrical power, causing the already fatigued pilots even more work load and stress.

When the flight crew attempted to re-ignite the functioning engine, it did not turn back on, and the pilots had no way to identify the issue due to the electrical failure. Upon investigation, it was found that this was due to a short circuited circuitry in the wing, which was damaged during the discharging of one of the agent squib bottles within the nacelle.

The pilots were able to successfully land the aircraft at Cairo International Airport, using the aircraft's Direct Law features. This was the first failure of its kind on this aircraft, and this led to a massive rewiring process of the aircraft. Over the period of the next six months, over a thousand A320neos have received the mandatory hardware updates, and the odds of this type of failure re-occurring are second to none.

## The Incident

At 23:09, 26th July 2023, the aircraft was on approach into Cairo International Airport, when a loud bang could be heard throughout the cabin. This sound was presumably caused by the ingestion of a piece of cowling on the engine.

Just a few minutes later, all electrical power was lost onboard the aircraft. At this point, the aircraft was around 10 Nautical Miles away from the airport. The cause of this electrical power loss is known as to be the misidentification of the issue, causing the flight crews to accidentally isolate the wrong engine.

Upon doing so, they also discharged the two agent bottles into the engine, causing the combustion within to be extinguished. Upon realising the issue, the pilots attempted to restart the functioning engine with no result, as the agent bottles had short-circuited some of the circuitry within the engine's nacelle.

The blue hydraulic system remained pressurised by the RAM Air Turbine (RAT) however the other systems lost pressurisation. Thankfully, the Airbus A320neo has a system implemented which allows the gear to manually fall into position using a hand crank. Upon use of this hand-crank, the gear fell into position, allowing for a safe landing.

Upon touchdown, the left engine (the engine which ingested the cowling) was dented, causing a major fuel leak across the runway. This fuel was then ignited, causing a massive fire along the runway. Thankfully, the visibility conditions on the day allowed the air traffic controllers to quickly respond by alerting emergency crews. The fire was quickly put out, and the aircraft was evacuated.

Out of the 167 occupants, all survived without sustaining major injuries. One injury was resulted when a group of schoolchildren on the flight pushed another child down the emergency exit slide, resulting in the victim breaking a leg.

Two victims had to be hospitalised after the incident, with the other 12 being able to get treated on the airport site, suffering minor conditions like burns or cuts.