The Air Accidents Investigation Board, the Government's safety adviser, is investigating the incident involving the pounds 60m Boeing 777 after a team from the plane's manufacturers spent a week examining the jet, but failed to reach a conclusion. The BA flight 133, which was carrying 85 passengers to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, was forced to return to Heathrow airport after being in the air for a little over two hours when the aircraft started rolling mysteriously at 37,000ft last October.The cabin crew was first alerted when a passenger next to a window noticed that the wing flaps seemed to be moving randomly. When the first officer returned to the flight deck, he was unable to understand the actions of the aircraft's computers.In its ``mandatory occurrence" report to the Civil Aviation Authority, the airline said that a ``manual landing [was] carried out ... large rudder input was required."A team of Boeing engineers spent a week examining the airliner and questioning cabin crew but were unable to explain the incident. Parts were also tested in Boeing's headquarters in Seattle, but technicians could not explain the jet's random movements.British Airways said that it was now monitoring its fleet of 777s ``Safety is paramount for our customers. Our initial conclusion is that the roll was caused by rudder movement," said a spokesman for the airline.The 777 is considered one of the most sophisticated in the world. It uses the latest fly-by-wire technology.Produced by Boeing a little over three years ago, British Airways ordered 15 immediately and have an option to buy another 15 - an order worth pounds 2bn.Once on the ground, the aircraft's black box flight recorder revealed that the movement was caused by ``uncommanded" rudder movements which the aircraft's sophisticated flight computer had attempted to rectify by using the flaps on the wings.Errant rudder movements have sparked a controversial debate in the aircraft world. Last month, Washington ordered airlines around the world to fit newly developed rudder systems in 2,800 Boeing 737s.The changes were prompted by two unexplained crashes in the United States, which claimed more than 150 lives.
Investigators suspect that they were caused by extreme rudder movements.Safety campaigners said they were "concerned" by the investigation. ``Boeing were made to carry out changes on the 737s, but only after the US government acted. Will they now act on the 777?" asked William Beckett, who lost his daughter in the Manchester runway disaster in 1985 and chairs a safety pressure group set up soon afterwards.Boeing says it has been unable to replicate the ``unusual" situation. "There have been no other occurrences of the incident by BA or any other 777 operator around the world," said a company spokeswoman.. Ministers' plans to impose minimum sentences on persistent offenders were in disarray last night after peers inflicted a damaging defeat on the Govern- ment in the House of Lords. Opposition amendments to give flexibility to judges were carried by just eight votes after the Home Secretary warned that the move would "drive a coach and horses" through the Crime Bill. Last night, the Home Office confirmed that Michael How-ard would attempt to repair his Bill in the House of Commons. The move may leave him exposed to a further revolt from some Conservative backbench-ers who are known to be unhappy about the measures.The Bill imposes compulsory sentences of seven years on third-time drug dealers and of three years on third-time burglars as well as imposing life sentences on second-time violent and sexual offenders.
It allows discretion for judges in exceptional circumstances, but peers from both sides of the house argued that it was too narrow.They voted 180 to 172 for an amendment which would allow judges to impose shorter sentences on burglars and drug dealers if they felt cirumstances demanded it.Among those who opposed the Government in the Lords yesterday were the former Master of the Rolls, Lord Donaldson and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham. Lord Hailsham, a Tory Lord Chancellor, also voted against the Government.Lord Bingham defied his opponents to find a criminal justice system that worked better than the British one."All we are asking is for the courts to be able to decline to pass sentences which are against their professional or moral consciences. Surely that isn't asking too much," he said.Labour home affairs spokes-man in the Lords, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, said a huge variety of offences would be covered by the measures."Many burglars are pathetic losers, many dealers are themselves addicts who need treatment rather than lengthy prison sentences," he said.However, Home Office minister Baroness Blatch said the amendments would wreck the Bill. They would allow judges to make exceptions in all cases if they wanted, she said.. A smooth-talking serial killer who befriended travellers along the 1970s hippie trail, then drugged them and left a trail of bodies across Nepal, Thailand, and India, is about to walk free from New Delhi's Tihar Jail after almost 20 years. Charles Sobhraj, at 52, still has the lethal charms of an Asian Charles Manson.
Even from behind bars, his young female admirers become willing accomplices. In jail, he's had a string of fiancees - mostly foreigners held for dealing drugs. He has pledged to marry a Punjabi girl half his age just two days after his release - which may be this morning (Valentine's Day) or, more likely, on Monday. Sobhraj, who once boasted to his biographers that he committed 10 murders in 1976 alone, is more cunning now and denies everything. "I regret the past, but don't ask me which part," he told reporters outside a bail hearing this week.He bungled badly on 5 July 1976, when he drugged a group of 60 French tourists in New Delhi, intending to swipe their passports and cash, but miscalculated the dose. The manager of the Vikram Hotel, aghast when the guests all collapsed in his lobby, summoned the police. Sobhraj also had his collar felt for another memorable felony: he seduced a dancing girl who occupied a strategically placed hotel room, then gagged her and tied her to the bed while he sawed through the floor and looted sacks of gems from the jewellery store directly underneath.During his years in prison, Sobhraj has poured over law books and considers himself an expert on international extradition.
To dodge arrest for the notorious "bikini murders" of five female tourists on Thai beaches, which would have led to almost certain conviction and a death penalty, Sobhraj extended his prison sentence on purpose by masterminding an obvious escape from the high-security Tihar Jail. On his birthday, he gave poisoned sweets to the wardens and just waltzed free, along with a gullible British inmate, David Hall, who he lured into the plot. He then flaunted himself as a high-profile fugitive in Goa until Indian police rearrested him. Absconding charges kept him safely in custody while his lawyer summoned 107 defence witnesses. The gambit worked, and the Thai extradition orders expired this year.Meanwhile, he has become a new French anti-hero, and not only because he carries a French passport. His earlier escapes from prisons in Rhodes, Bombay, Kabul, and the Greek island of Aegina were quixotic and risky.