A British Airways Boeing 777-200 was step climbing from FL330 to FL350 about 150nm south of Helsinki (Finland) in Estonian Airspace when the right-hand engine (a Trent 895) developed a problem causing EEC failure messages. The engine was shut down, the aircraft drifted down to FL220 and diverted to Helsinki for a safe landing on runway 22L about 60 minutes later.
The flight was BA-161 from London Heathrow, EN (UK) to Shanghai Pudong (China), performed by a 777-200ER registered as G-YMMH.
The airport reported emergency services were alerted of the engine failure about 30 minutes prior to landing.
A replacement Boeing 777-200 registration G-YMMK was dispatched from London to Helsinki as flight BA-9150, departed Helsinki about 15.5 hours after landing and is estimated to arrive in Shanghai with a delay of about 16.5 hours.
On Sep 4th 2018 some news agencies received evidence clarifying that the last low-pressure turbine stage disk had dislodged, all blades of that stage had been fractured and debris had been ejected through the tail pipe, the debris hitting the underside of the right wing, the fuselage and the right hand horizontal stabilizer.
A passenger reported there had been a loud bang, several passengers thought it was like an explosion, and streaks of flame from the right hand engine. The captain later commented that the engine failure felt exactly like they had practised it in the simulator.
The engine was replaced, the aircraft was able to position back to London Heathrow on Sep 4th 2018.
On Sep 4th 2018 Mart Kaas, an Estonian resident underneath the flight path of G-YMMH, reported that his lawn mower got shattered when it hit something hard in the lawn. The resident then remembered that during a night at the beginning of the previous week they woke up because they heard something falling onto the roof.
Image © Wikimedia, Mart Kaas
