Captain had every right to emergency evacuate that aircraft, unbelievable how long the delay was .

So they evacuated a terminal quicker than an aircraft! Unbelievable

I am jumping out of my chair! This is totally unacceptable. The lady from the tower has been doing her best, but the services were not organized.

Well done to the Captain. Clearly he is following the highest levels of security and service. Bermuda get your emergency systems in place !

Pilots are amazing how calm they are. So professional. I would love to have the calm and collective attitude of this pilot. What an amazing example of a person doing a professional job under what could of been catastrophic circumstances.

Isnt it amazing how calm pilots are in these situations.

That Captain was incredibly patient with the Air Traffic Controller, the Airport management really should be embarrassed by how they handled this situation, a bomb threat on an aircraft filled with passengers should not take almost an hour to evacuate.

Firstly I can hear the stress in the Captains voice, luckily he didn’t have a stroke. For those who think a trip down the slides is the same as a play park, it is NOT there are ALWAYS injuries which no doubt the keyboard warriors would then say sue the airline if it was a hoax. I don’t need to comment on how badly this all went.

It appears this airport does not have any SOP for a bomb threat!!!! To have a bomb threat and 40 minutes later with no evacuation of aircraft! Seems like the captain is the one who is organizing the entire circumstances!!!!

The delay in the evacuation of this aircraft was unacceptable. I think the captain couldn't believe it either. I don't know who this comes down too but better protocols are needed surely! Waiting a further 20mins for the steps, i am surprised considering the threat the slides wasn't used by the captain.

Unbelievable, the inefficiency.

OMG the delay! Bermuda airport is incredibly unstructured for emergencies!!!!! You could tell that the lady in the Tower was doing her absolute best, accolades to her! She should receive a promotion for her excellent work! Shame, shame, SHAME on the executive management staff at that airport, and the owners of that airport, for such utter incompetence!!!

Not in any hurry to visit Bermuda! What incompetence!

Yeah. "hopefully" is not something an airliner captain wants to hear

What a mess

The organisation of this airport is beyond belief, would not have happened at a UK airport. Think this country is off my travel plans

40 minutes since threat and fire department isnon standby by the tower? And they were told to hold? This is horrid.

The poor pilots and crew. Were the passengers aware. Just terrifying. So unnecessarily extra stressful

Totally incompetent operation at BDA totally unprepared for a bomb threat … terrible

Holy cow! This is insane!!!!

I am so grateful this video was posted on here. It's alerted me never to fly to this airport. Emergency response is virtually non existent.

This took way longer than it should have, but I must say, I could listen to this lady on the radio all day long.

TXKF - What a train wreck in EM-SOP! Hopefully the airport learned something from this and reevaluated their procedures for EM such as these.

All I can do is shake my head at the way this Bermuda airport shockingly coordinated the evacuation of this British Airway flight. I am surprised the captain did not do an emergency evacuation and use the slides. It would seem to me it’s appropriate emergency procedures need to be thoroughly reviewed at this airport…

Wow - what a dereliction of duty by the Tower (not this controller; the tower itself and management) - not to mention some outrageously inappropriate policies and procedures.

I used to work part-time in Bermuda (the other time in New York). Bermuda is indeed an extraordinary place to visit, but the entire infrastructure is third world. I was hospitalized twice, on different occasions, and you cannot believe the incompetence. For an island that hosts so many banks and insurance companies, you’d think they’d have the resources and competence to do a better job. One anecdote: our main contact in Bermuda, a certain Mr Peniston, gave my company a hard time about absolutely everything. I’m sure he was looking for a “financial incentive.” Our dealings with him came to an abrupt end when the local police found him in a men’s restroom with….how to say this delicately…..another man’s Peniston down his throat. This was in 1987.

I stand to be corrected but this airport is in Bermuda ( Archipelago of 7 islands). Thus not a big airport compared to LHR or JFK. Much smaller complement of staff across all genres of responsibility. In all probability, never had to deal with such a serious situation like a bomb threat. So kudos to lady in the Tower. She probably had loads of calls to make to Fire, Police, Airport Security etc. There was only so much she could do. Wouldn't surprise me that the lifestyle in such a beautiful tropical island is very laid back and would take a while to get officials into emergency mode. The Captain was very patient in dealing with the situation in spite of the extreme danger the bomb threat posed. Evacuating passengers via chutes/slides is a last ditch operation. Many serious injuries can occur during such a disembarkation. Since the video ended rather abruptly, I am assuming all ended well and the bomb threat was a hoax. Being a British Territory no doubt MI6 investigated and found the hoaxer and he/she is safely behind bars for a long time. Great video, by the way 👍👌🤗

One of my first 'shout's' as we called them was to a bomb threat in the terminal, cars on fire in the carpark, a bomb threat on an A320, and a ground incident for a taxing 332 helicopter. We attended all within 90 seconds. We were stretched to the bone, and still managed to deal with everything at the same time. In the end it turned out the 332 had went over on it's starboard side, the rotor's hit the tarmac and exploded. Part's of it hit the A320 ripping a hole out of it's side and wing. The terminal building had been hit by large chucks, a hole gouged out with a bit of propeller hanging out, windows smashed. The car's in the carpark also got hit igniting several fire's. We got the terminal evacuated, the Airbus on a secluded ramp for bomb threat's and hostage's, and we got the 332 ground incident dealt with. Incident's closed within the hour, airfield remained open throughout albeit we dropped down a category until we reopened. This incident is a joke, and the captain should never have been put in this position. Bomb threat's happen all the time, pretty common in aviation firefighting. We also have access to steps to get you off.lol

If it was such a credible threat i cant believe the pilot didn't just evacuate his passengers immediately down the air slides to get them away from the plane, waiting for towers response to the matter jeopardized his passengers lives.

Well that's Bermuda off my list of holiday destinations. Several civilisations were born and died before the Speedbird plane was evacuated.

I'm not going to critique the organization of people dealing with two bomb threats simultaneously. Where exactly were they supposed to evacuate the passengers to?

It's more than a bit worrying how easily someone can cause this amount of worry and potential for injury using slides, by making empty threats via email. This was a regular problem in the UK in the 70's with endless false alarms by phone causing us to be evacuated from buildings - the problem was that many of them were real and the warnings came too late or were flawed / usless info in some cases. That threat eventually diminished then came the new kind and shockingly slow responses in the UK with many injured teenagers at a pop concert left to bystanders to try and assist while the emergency services were held back for one or two hours as I can best recall. (Manchester Arena) - Statistically the figures are said to be not as significant as we perceive but it doesn;t take many instances for that perception to marr the lives of most people. I can;t help feeling / wishing there was a way to track those responsible and deal with them accordingly.

I think the issue is with the protocol and emergency services.

Wowza.....what an age that took. Very calm despite the obvious difficulties emerging. It just goes to show that no doubt many places prepare well for single emergencies, but never train or prepare for multiple or large scale threats. Clearly they were totally caught out by the chaos factor involved in having an aircraft incident running in tandem with the whole terminal building threat. "Lessons have been learned".....?

Seems like over an hour to start getting people off the plane, very disorganized, and very disappointing, this is very stressful for the pilots trying to get the passengers and crew off the plane ASAP.

Took similar amount of time from threat received to evacuate my high school when I was a teen.

Fair play to the ATC lady she was very clear and concise, you could hear the pilots frustration being aired but the situation was far from normal with the evacuation of the terminal as well. Whilst it is unacceptable for the delay that they experienced I would imagine that the limited resources that an airport of Bermudas size were already in use with the terminal threat, there was presumably a threat assessment made and the evacuation of the terminal where the numbers of people could have been greater than those on board the aircraft which determined a priority. The captain could have instigated a slide evacuation and the passengers could have been marshalled by the crew once they had evacuated. Possibly 10 to 12 crew equates to less than 20 passengers per crew member so in many respects in this situation the captain had more resources available to him than were available in excess to the Terminal Evacuation. Personally I don't think the authorities or the Captain were either right or wrong and in hind site the captain should have initiated an evacuation via the slides, ok it would have cost the airline a lot of money but BA can afford it !

What an inept airport. Mañana.

That was absolutely shocking. That could have been a massacre right there because of gross mismanagement.

Thats just crazy hope everyone is ok!

I thought that these airports all have to operate to international safety readiness standards. I hope the Bermuda government is aware of this incident and actually understands just how serious it was and just how seriously they failed to exercise every asset to the safety of passengers. Disgraceful.No other word. Disgraceful. Thank God for pilot training - just wish he'd pushed the MayDay before that point - it was blindingly obvious that the airport was incompetent and reckless of the souls aboard. Who on earth would want to fly to Bermuda? Appalling conduct by the airport management and board who clearly have no interest or oversight.

If I was the captain the plane would have been emptied by now. Fuck the instructions from the run around department

They are definitely on island time there at BDA.

Can you imagine if they made this video in real time and not truncated for the times when nothing was being transmitted? It was hard to listen to. If I were that pilot I would have likely evacuated the aircraft via the slides. That would likely result in a few minor injuries but he would have had a good reason to back up his decision. I hope this airport does a deep de-brief after this incident because it seems there are areas that can be seriously improved upon.

Would be interesting to know what time of day this happened…. would definitely affect the availability of airport personnel to assist with the passengers on the plane. Also a point to remember is that not all airport personnel are authorized access to the ramp & airfield. This is a pretty dynamic emergency situation.

after the 5 call i would have activated the emergency slides. Absolutely unacceptable.

Wow, that's a joke...someone needs to SOP this situation....

What a gong show. That airport is a total operational mess.

island time is forever! 40 minutes is 4 minutes in island time

I'm glad this wasn't something critical like a bomb threat or anything! What The ACTUAL F*CK is wrong with the Tower?

Total incompetence on the part of ATC and the Bermudian authorities. This is completely unacceptable and the crew made the right call to prepare to blow the slides and evacuate via this method. This ATC controller was a complete and total moron and should never return to active duty.

The delay is totally unacceptable, that bomb could have gone off by then and those evacuated at the terminal should not have had priority but understanding that resources were limited from having to evacuate the terminal; still, the souls on board are just as important; captain should have activated the slides even though injuries may have happened

Holy shit .. the Aircraft could of exploded by the time they had got there act together ! I would be so pissed off if I were the Captain

this performance is the worst i have seen. even our public sector is more organized..

Do we know if they found anything?

How ridiculous ,. What a disgrace

I was waiting for her to offer a discount on a future order. This is the worse communication than I have had with any customer service rep.

What utter unacceptable bullshit from the Bermuda authorities....no one should ever consider flying into such a disorganized chaotic place. I speak as someone whose job once entailed dealing with airliners where bombs on board were alleged.or implied....and I can tell you we had passengers and crew off those aircraft in lightning quick time...and those aircraft moved safely away from the public.

Holy crap.

During the troubles in Ireland my Dad was a Garda and they used to get a lot of telephoned bomb threats to the Garda station. My dad's colleague was getting sick of all this when the police station phone rang one day. A lady's voice on the other end of the line said "There's a bomb in the old ground hotel" He replied "stick it up your fanny" and hung up on her. True story 🤣

Protocol is for the fire department to stay away!? I seriously doubt it. Sounds like a mess of an airport.

Shocking!!

Absolute shambles. Cannot believe how badly this was handled. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="586">9:46</a> As soon as they received a bomb threat against the aircraft an evacuation should have been ordered immediately. It seems this was in the control of just the tower operator making and taking phone calls. The Captain had every right to use the slides for an evacuation given the time he had to wait, but he's obviously reluctant to use slides because of the possibility of injury. The airport managers need to do a thorough review of this shambles and along with emergency services implement a bomb threat procedure. I'm just pleased this was a hoax because if it had been real many lives would have been lost. Credit to the flight crew who remained totally calm throughout despite having little help from ground controllers.

Absolutely ridiculous & irresponsible!

Omg the delay! The pilots probably went out of hours for this flight and a new crew needed plus all luggage had to come off and re-scanned. To be fair this is any airports worst nightmare ! Even the most modern and well Equipped airports .

Unbelievable and not the poor lady in the towers fault. She is like the piggy in the middle. When was the last EMS audit?

What a disgusting way to handle an emergency on an airport, that lady in the Control Tower sounded as if she couldn't care less about the bomb scare on the plane, the emergency services should have been on their way to the aircraft as soon as they received the call about the bomb, I will make sure I don't every fly into Bermuda airport, they should be ashamed of them selves

“You are requesting ambulances as well?”……does she not grasp the severity of this? Why would ambulances even be a question.

Unbelievable

One hell of a mess.

Tough decision to evacuate what is most likely a hoax. But it was deemed credible. That it took over 40 min though... When evacuating there will be injuries. Not good. I see it is a good idea to declare the mayday right away and take control of the situation. If ATC is not (able) to assist then tell them what's happening but I can imagine the stress they are under waiting...totally unacceptable. Why every airport doesn't have air stairs that can rapidly be deployed is beyond me.

"Bear with us, we have started filling out the required forms and reports. Once approved in the morning we will inform you about the outcome ..."

Pilot having to ask all the questions. Ridiculous. Plus he had to prompt her re the souls onboard and fuel. Should that no have been asked by ATC at the start?

The tower controller just doesn't understand or doesn't care that all these lives are at risk. She just wants to manage the situation because that's what air traffic controllers do. And her mind she's just supposed to organize and make things orderly. She's lost sight of the fact that this is an emergency.

Tragic.

What happened next ? Aircraft searched and found nothing? Crew went out of hours probably too

What a s*it show! BDA should have been all over this and activated their airport disaster recovery plan (DRP) or equivalent. The BA crew were patient, considering the gravity of the situation. BDA next time sort your s*it out!!!

Dangerous delay.

Wow….what an unorganized mess. Unbelievable

Talk about a delay....hideous

Imagine having a REAL emergency and waiting for those losers to finish their pina coladas and come and save you.

My guess is the threat was made by the last pilot who had to deal with this s***storm of a lousy excuse for an airport infrastructure. Just scratched that island off my bucket list.

Very poor response and assistance with this plane. This took way too long.

If this was a bomb on board then they should have gotten the passengers immediately of the plane. The airport wasted and wasted huge amounts of time. They seem to be totally incompetent in dealing with this. You hear constantly that " we are working on this etc". They are on their way ---bla bla bla- what's going on there ???????!

I would not like to be on that plan with this inept tower person who should be fired. And the airport should be looked into for their policies. People could be dead while this woman is incapable of doing her job.

Not been funny but id have the emergency slides deployed straight away and off the plane!!

Unconscionable delay in response. There should be consequences.

I wouldn't have waited and used slides straightway for those who are mobile. Who knows when something would go off.

Substandard

OMG… what a cluster… that girl was kind but ineffective and incompetent.

Those of you making racist/island comments have obviously never lived on a small island, let alone worked at the airport or flown in or out of it. Policy is to have a single ATC on the late shift, if not during the day as well. They had two bomb threats at once, and they have limited emergency services and airport employees. I wouldn’t be surprised of the car rental people were pressed into service (hyperbole, people). Fire department stages out of range so they don’t also get destroyed if the worst should happen, and they are 2 seconds away if it should. What would be the point of putting the rescuers in harms way? And finally, that ATC did a tremendous job at handling an incredible amount of information and remaining calm. Yes they should be prepared for an emergency. If the airlines are concerned about safety they should reconsider flying into that airport, especially at night.

This airport should think very very well about getting their act together because if a few US American passengers die there because of their incompetence, the entire country will go bankrupt after paying their families! You don't want to know what happens if some Russian passengers die.... You can however search for the faith of a poor ai traffic controller that was partially responsible for a plane crash...

This is outrageous. Forget the steps and buses. Activate the slides. What would have happened if thw bomb exploded as they WAITED. I would have sued the hell out of that airline. APPALLING.

I understand- ummmm do you lady- you are not on the plane. I DO NOT like her… Arrive soon… Sooo NOT ACCEPTABLE

Holy Crap! That bomb would have had time to blow up a million times before the tower got its s**t together.....

Welllll f%^*

Well, you get what you pay for. Public services in a notorious tax haven

What a pathtic respone from the air traffic control, very poor responce by emergency service the building could have been emptied with minium staf and resorces diverted to the air craft

Lazy islanders they were all at the beach

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="443">7:23</a> BDA_TWR: "Affirmative. You want port wine with the (chicken) wings ...?" <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="474">7:54</a> BDA_TWR "Speedbird 18B roger understand you want the (chicken) wings sliced ..." <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="497">8:17</a> BDA_TWR "Speedbird 18B understood you are requesting (comfortable) armchairs as well. (We might have some spare ones ...) <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="515">8:35</a> " BDA_TWR "You have 1 door left. What happened to the rest of the aircraft ? Has the bomb gone off ...?" <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="525">8:45</a> BDA_TWR "The door is to be left ... So, we are not touching THAT door, that has been left ...? What happened ...?" Eventually ... "Would you like to come to the terminal bar for drinks once you have sorted out YOUR problem ? Or are you in a rush getting to London ...?"