Monday Accident & Lessons Learned: Maintenance Error Leads to Near-Miss in the Sky Over London

The Associated Press reported that:

“A British Airways jet that made an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport last week lost panels from both its engines after they were left unlatched during maintenance, accident investigators said Friday.”

“The covers detached as the plane climbed, damaging the airframe and some aircraft systems and rupturing a fuel pipe on the plane’s right engine, which developed an external fire. The pilots managed to land the plane on one engine.”

Seems like a pretty close call. Can your maintenance organization cause process safety accidents? What are you doing to improve maintenance reliability?