LONDON (Thomson Financial) – More than two hundred flights have been cancelled at London’s Heathrow airport after a British Airways Boeing 777 jet landed short of the airport’s southern runway early this afternoon, causing minor injuries to three passengers.
Services are running on a limited basis after being suspended when passengers were evacuated earlier Wednesday from flight BA038, which was carrying 136 passengers from the Chinese capital Beijing when it was forced to carry out an emergency landing at 12.42 pm.
Here is a map of where the accident happened…
By 5.30 pm 222 flights, mainly short-haul, had been cancelled at the airport, while 24 had been diverted, airport operator BAA said in a statement.
BA advised passengers flying from Heathrow to contact their airline to check the status of their flight.
Heathrow’s southern runway was closed immediately after the incident, but has now re-opened for take-offs only, airport operator BAA said in a statement. The northern runway is operating for arriving flights and some arriving aircraft are being diverted on a flight-by-flight basis to nearby airports such as Luton and Stansted, BAA said. The UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch is attending the scene, it added.
Willie Walsh, British Airways chief executive, said in a statement that three passengers on the flight had ‘minor injuries’ from the incident and praised the response of his staff. ‘The captain of the aircraft is one of our most experienced and has been flying with us for nearly 20 years. Our crew are trained to deal with these situations,’ Walsh said, adding, ‘An investigation is being conducted by the Air Accident Investigation Branch so it would be inappropriate to speculate about the likely cause of this incident.’
Airline BMI said in a statement that flights are running under operational restrictions including a single runway operation. ‘BMI is committed to operating as near a normal schedule as is possible to all its destinations, though some (services) may be subject to operational delay,’ it said in a statement.
Television pictures showed the jet lying diagonally across the start of the runway with its escape slides extended and surrounded by airport fire engines and emergency vehicles. It appeared to be largely intact, although it was lying on its belly.
An eyewitness told the BBC that the undercarriage of the jet appeared to have been lowered when the plane was approaching the runway, although the engines were making a louder noise than usual. It reportedly skidded along the grass just before the runway before coming to a halt on the tarmac.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said officers were alerted to the incident at about 12.45 pm.
‘We understand all passengers and crew have been evacuated, there are no reports of anyone being seriously injured at this time and there is nothing to suggest this incident is terrorism-related,’ he said.
The incident resulted in delays to flights including a jet carrying British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his entourage of officials and journalists on a trip to China, although his aircraft has since departed, the BBC reported.
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