Posted on 01/17/2008 6:17:58 AM PST by UKTory
An international passenger plane has crash landed short of the runway at Heathrow Airport.
Passengers escaped down the emergency chutes after British Airways flight BA38 from Beijing came down.
Six ambulances were sent to the scene and three people were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
The incident happened as Prime Minister Gordon Brown was due to leave Heathrow for China and India. His flight was delayed because of the incident.
The south runway is closed while investigators examine the scene - the north runway remains open.
Eyewitness John Rowland said: "The plane's wheels collapsed, doors were flown open.
"On its approach it took the runway too low, just missing the roof of my cab.
"It crashed into the runway, debris was flying everywhere, there was an enormous bang and it skidded sideways."
Another eyewitness, Nick Gray, told BBC News: "We were taxiing along ready to take off and certainly out of the window I could see a plane coming in to land.
"I'm not quite sure if the under carriage was missing or not, but certainly what we saw was the plane coming down.
"There were some sparks as the undercarriage or the bottom of the plane actually touched the runway - certainly a huge amount of smoke coming up from that.
"And then the plane did come to a halt reasonably quickly.
"It was incredibly efficient the speed that people got off the aircraft.
"I could see that the shoots were deployed very quickly and people were coming down on that.
"Then people were sent off to the nearby buildings which are probably only about 200 yards away from the plane.
"There about six fire engines there now.
"There seems to have been regular dousing of foam on the port engine which obviously probably was the hottest one where the plane landed.
"Certainly there is a lot of activity and lots of vehicles with flashing lights all around the plane."
Unconfirmed whether it was a techbical problem or pilot error at this stage. Passengers said they had no warning of an emergency landing, but eyewitnesses are decribing the plane seeming to having problems on late approach.
Three minor injuries treated at scene.
This will snag up Heathrow big style. BA saying no flights have been diverted at the moment.
Certainly without the word certainly this article certainly could not have been certainly written.
That's "one size fits all" education for you! /sarc
Well...uh...you know...it is what it is.
I’ve seen reports this was a Boeing 777. Is that accurate?
Sky News interviewing a passenger now.
Says the flight had all appeared to go normally, the landing gear had come down, was on approach to runway and then seemed to ‘just drop’.
Yes, is a Boeing 777 I believe.
Saw some pictures of it over at the airliners.net forums; the gear is at least partially collapsed (maybe only one side) and all the slides are deployed, of course.
I’m amazed that an airliner with the technical sophistication of the B777, and the crew training that BA gives its pilots, had something like this happen.
}:-)4
Countdown to amateur speculation on the cause in 10...
Obviously probably this was a crash.
Some inbound flights to Heathrow now being diverted:
4 to Luton
3 to Stanstead
12 to Gatwick
So far.
It was probably old man Costanza trying to cop a feel.
Too late.
Heathrow Crash Landing Updated 14:27, Thursday January 17, 2008 The aircraft appeared to have landed several hundred yards short of the southern runway - and just yards from a busy perimeter road.
Sloppy maintenance?
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