Air accident investigators in the US have warned there is a "high probability" that a fault leading to the crash landing of a BA jet at Heathrow will strike other Boeing 777s.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued an urgent safety recommendation calling for a redesign of a Rolls-Royce engine component in the plane, following two engine rollbacks - sudden power losses - last year.
It came as a UK accident report showed how a build-up of ice on the fuel/oil heat exchanger (FOHE) could have caused the incident at Heathrow in January last year that left one person seriously injured among the 150 people on board.
The BA flight from Beijing just cleared a perimeter fence at Heathrow before crash landing short of the runway.
The plane's captain Peter Burkill and co-pilot John Coward were hailed as heroes for their skilful handling of the aircraft.
A second incident involving a Boeing 777 occurred 10 months later when a Delta Air Lines plane experienced a single engine rollback while cruising over Montana en route to Atlanta.
In both cases, a build-up of ice on the FOHE restricted the flow of fuel to the engine, resulting in the engine rollback.
As a result, the NTSB has called for a redesign of the FOHE that would eliminate the potential of ice build-up. Rolls-Royce has said that a new version of the component is already under way and it is estimated that it will be ready to be fitted within 12 months.
But until then, all Boeing 777s will have to operate with the suspected fault. There are currently 220 Boeing 777s in operation, 15 owned by British Airways.
Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the NTSB said: "With two of these rollback events occurring within a year, we believe that there is a high probability of something happening again."
