British Airways pax are told in error "We're about to crash"

[sn26567]

British Airways apologised to 275 passengers flying from London Heathrow to Hong Kong flight on Tuesday evening after an automated emergency message warning they were about to crash into the sea was played by mistake: "This is an emergency. We may shortly need to make an emergency landing on water."

The plane was flying over the North Sea at the time.

Cabin crew on the Boeing 747 quickly realised the error and moved to reassure the terrified passengers that there was no emergency.

An investigation is under way to discover whether it was human error or a computer glitch.

[Stij]

Basil Faulty couldn't have made it up! British Humour... gotta love it!

Cheers,

Stij

[cathay belgium]

automated emergency message warning they were about to crash into the sea was played by mistake

Didn't know such message was on tape !
When and who's gonna start this message ??? ( if there is really a case )
I always tought such messages were said to the pax by pilot/copilot or senior cabin crew..
Maybe on FR with a funny jingle .. but a taped message by BA ??

bizarre..

CX-B

[earthman]

For extra fun, this message should have been recorded by the kids doing the safety vid for Jetair...

[Thomas_C]

Probably FR would add 'so buy your lottery tickets now!'

[Charlie Roy]

Didn't know such message was on tape !

It's on tape in various different languages. BA cabin crew can't be expected to speak Chinese for example. They can also put in on repeat while the attend to passengers having difficulty putting on their life vests etc.

[HAWK21M]

Shouldn't Emergency messages be operated by a Master guarded switch to avoid such errors.