Description

On 24 June 1982, a Rolls Royce RB211-524C2 powered Boeing 747-200 (G-BDXH) being operated by British Airways on a scheduled international passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur to Perth as BA009 and in the cruise at FL370 in night VMC with no knowledge of a recent new volcanic eruption of Mount Galunggung entered what turned out to be an ash cloud just south of Jakarta. All four engines quickly failed and a 25,000 feet loss of altitude occurred until four successful engine restarts were achieved at FL120. A diversion to Jakarta (Halim) was then completed by visual navigation on three engines after one of the restarted engines had to be shut down when the aircraft briefly entered the ash cloud again. Significant damage was subsequently found to have been caused to all the engines, to parts of the airframe and to the systems required for many of the primary flight instruments to function.   

Editor's Note:

Since no independent investigation in accordance with ICAO Annex 13 was conducted, this summary article relies entirely on reliable and technically competent secondary sources authored by persons with access to internal British Airways and Rolls Royce which have critically re-examined the available data from this event and others to try and achieve a better understanding of the likely density of the ash clouds penetrated in relation to the exposure duration and the subsequently observed engine damage. Some key points from the event could also be corroborated by a direct account of the event from the Captain of the aircraft which was included in a pilot ash awareness training video released by Boeing in 1992 after a similar event over Alaska in 1989.