Pilot-Tower Tapes Flesh Out 747 Incident That Triggered A Controversy Over Safety A few seconds after a fully loaded British Airways 747 took off from Los Angeles on its way to London last year, one of its four engines erupted in a spectacular nighttime burst of flame. The fire burned out quickly, but the controversy has continued to smolder. An air-traffic controller watching the runways radioed a warning to British Airways Flight 268 and assumed the plane would quickly turn around. To controllers' surprise, the pilots checked with their company and then flew on, hoping to "get as far as...