BA flight delayed again

A British Airways flight bound for Washington has been delayed for a third successive day today as officials assess the terror risk to the transatlantic jet.

Flight BA223's take-off from Heathrow airport is again awaiting clearance from American authorities concerned over possible terrorism threats.

Earlier today, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended the disruption to flights. Mr Straw said if terrorists mounted a successful attack, the media would "flick in an instant" to hunting for Government negligence.

He pointed to the thousands of flights that had taken off without disruption in recent days.

He said there was a fine balance to be struck between taking sensible precautions and ensuring the Government did not do the terrorists' job for them.

"Getting this balance right is difficult," he said.

"We do our very best, but of course where there is a fine judgment to be made, we come down on the side of passenger safety and no one would forgive us if we failed to do that."

And he insisted sky marshals were not being introduced solely because of demands from the USA.

He said the British Government made its own judgments on the basis of expert analysis of intelligence.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling told the programme it was "complete rubbish" to suggest the flights had been grounded to force British Airways to accept sky marshals.

He said decisions to ground flights were taken only when information led the Government to the conclusion that it was "the only thing that is safe to do".