British Airways steward's death 'is linked to horror landing'
A BRITISH Airways steward was found dead on a beach weeks after a horror landing that left a plane’s entire cabin crew signed off sick and unfit to fly.
By: Ted Jeory
A British Airways plane 'crashed' in Madrid[PA: PIC NOT PLANE MENTIONED IN THE STORY]Andrew Barnes washed up on a Kent beach on April 11, a month after a BA flight from Heathrow to Madrid that caused deep anxiety to the crew.
It had been flown by a senior BA manager who may have made an error as she came in to land, injuring all eight cabin crew.
Andrew, 46, and described by friends as “kind, gentle and lovely”, was cremated in Folkestone on Friday.
A friend said he loved his job, but felt his account of what happened to flight BA460 on March 12 was not believed.
Details of what happened in its final moments are now the centre of an extraordinary dispute between the company and its cabin crew.
BA said a “thorough safety investigation” had concluded the Boeing 767, with about 150 passengers on board, “landed normally” at Madrid’s Barajas airport.
Yet witnesses told the Sunday Express cabin crew adopted the emergency brace position after the heavy landing as it sped along the runway, that overhead lockers opened, that oxygen masks dropped down and that passengers began screaming.
The landing had been “unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in decades of flying”, a witness said.
The witness added: “As the plane approached the runway, there was suddenly a huge roar.
The famous British Airways tail fins [PA]As the plane approached the runway, there was suddenly a huge roarA witness
"And then for what seemed like a few seconds, there was a sensation as if we were no longer flying.
"It went all quiet.
“And then it dropped vertically with a real thud.
"It was awful.”
The witness said the female pilot apologised for the unusual landing and blamed the wind.
However, the Sunday Express has established the winds at the airport at the time of landing, 5.30pm Spanish time, varied between 5-7 knots, equivalent to a gentle maximum of 8mph.
Crew members were signed off sick by a doctor and none have flown since.
The reported injuries included damage to legs, necks, back, vertebrates and the coccyx.
Days later, Andrew returned home to Hythe, Kent. He had reported neck injuries, and, in text messages to friends, is said to have expressed anger at BA bosses.
A friend said: “He was really fearful. He didn’t think BA would believe him. He was worried they would sack him.”
Police said Andrew’s death was being treated as non-suspicious.
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