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| Date: | Saturday 5 October 1996 |
| Time: | |
| Type: |  Boeing 747-236B |
| Owner/operator: | British Airways |
| Registration: | G-BDXI |
| MSN: | 21830/430 |
| Year of manufacture: | 1980 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 338 |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | Minor |
| Category: | Incident |
| Location: | near Delhi-Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL/VIDP) -
 India
|
| Phase: | Initial climb |
| Nature: | Passenger - Scheduled |
| Departure airport: | Delhi-Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL/VIDP) |
| London-Heathrow Airport (LHR/EGLL) | |
| Investigating agency: | AAIB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
During climb-out from Delhi, at about 500 feet and following the initiation of a turn to the left, the
flight deck crew felt an unusual vibration. A short time later the cabin crew reported that there was a
'bad vibration' in the cabin between doors 3 and 4 on the right-hand side. A member of the flight
deck crew went back into the cabin to investigate and heard a loud noise above the overhead bins,
and felt a vibration through the floor. The vibration subsequently appeared to be speed-related and
on reaching the cruise Flight Level the vibration decreased and stopped.
After the subsequent arrival at Heathrow Airport, it was found that a large area of the right-hand wing Fixed Trailing Edge Upper Panel, also known as the 'Flying Panel', was missing and inboard areas of the upper surfaces of the fore and mid trailing edge wing flaps were badly damaged.
Subsequent examination of the damaged areas showed good evidence to indicate that the Flying Panel had been 'hammering', for a period of time, against the fore flap and had produced two deep grooves in the fore flap's upper surface. No evidence was found to indicate that any defect in the structure or material of the Flying Panel had contributed to its failure. A major repair of this Flying Panel had previously been carried out, but there was no evidence that the type, or standard, of the repair had contributed to failure of the panel. Below the Flying Panel, it was found that the inboard diagonal tie rod at rib 1 (Figure 1) had bent/bowed laterally outboard in compression and had failed across the lower drain/vent holes.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5423000aed915d1371000a6f/dft_avsafety_pdf_501554.pdf
https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/8221864 (Photo)
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 11-Aug-2025 00:39 | Justanormalperson | Added |
| 11-Aug-2025 00:39 | Justanormalperson | Updated [Accident report, ] |
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