[flyover]

Theories propounded by crew include the possible presence of water in the tanks that, having become frozen during the intense cold-soak period of the flight, partially melted and formed a slush that could have partially blocked the fuel lines. Sources also tell The DAILY that upper air temperatures over Russia and northern Europe were extremely cold on the day of the accident. Information from other crews coming from Asia on Jan. 17 encountered extremely low temperatures in the -70 to -75 degrees C. range, resulting in fuel temperatures dipping into the -40s. European upper air temperatures also indicate the last 6.5 hours of the inbound China flight would have been flown at an outside air temperature of -60 deg. C. or lower. Although this would have resulted in fuel temperatures on approach in the -35 degrees C range, this would not normally constitute a problem unless, potentially, contaminants were present.


Man, that is cold. I've never seen temps colder than about -65 but in that case, after about 5 hours in it, we had an engine that wouldn't increase thrust after an intermediate level off during descent. It just stayed at descent idle thrust regardless of throttle position. After a short time it corrected itself and the later conclusion was possible icing in a small fuel line. At the time I thought how exciting it would have been if all 4 engines did it at the same time. In this BA case it looks like 100% of the engines had the same problem at the same time.