Investigators in Vegas comb through British Airways plane

A British Airways plane travelling from Washington Dulles airport was involved in a “full emergency” before landing safely at Heathrow airport.

The veteran British Airways pilot who was hailed a “hero” for saving the lives of passengers on a burning plane bound for London has said he is “unlikely” to fly again.

In July, a Southwest Airlines flight evacuated at Midway global Airport in Chicago when one engine caught fire on takeoff. It forced the evacuation of 159 passengers and 13 crew. As bad as it looked, it could have been much worse.

The plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders are now being examined by the NTSB, and the left engine is due to be shipped to experts to uncover what caused the fire.

Passengers are required by law to follow all crew instructions, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said. Passenger David Willey, from Chelmsford, told: “As the plane was speeding up to take off and we were just about to lift off we heard a big bang and suddenly the plane screeched to a massive halt”.

The chief of the Association of Flight Attendants union, which does not represent the British Airways crew, said she expects federal investigators will find that baggage slowed down the evacuation and caused some of the injuries.

It recovered part of the engine’s high pressure compressor from the runway, a part that squeezes the air flowing through the engine core before it is mixed with fuel and combusted. Clark County Fire Chief Greg Cassell said it appears the fire started in the jet’s number one engine.

The NTSB team is led by senior investigator Lorenda Ward and includes engine, systems and fire specialists.

The large plane with two GE90 engines was built in 1998 and was registered to British Airways a year later.

Dr Colin Brown, from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, told the BBC the engine casing was created to contain any damage, and it was “most likely” the high pressure compressor spool suffered from a “fatigue crack”. He said the entire crew helped.

“Wheeled cases could easily have ripped the escape slides, rendering them unusable and prejudicing passengers’ safe exit, whilst cases in the aisle make a confused situation even worse”, he said. The airport has been taking steps to accommodate more worldwide travelers seeking direct flights to Europe and Asia, including adding new gates to accommodate wide-body double-decker jets.

“You really don’t see catastrophic or uncontained engine failure like this very often”, aviation safety consultant John Cox was quoted as saying. “It has a remarkably good safety record,” he said of the 777 model first introduced in 1994.