Fire crews meet BA aircraft in Heathrow emergency landing
Fire crews met a British Airways flight at London Heathrow on Friday morning in what was described as a ‘full emergency’.
Operations were temporarily suspended on one runway as the aircraft had to be towed to a stand, but the runway re-opened soon afterwards.
Three fire engines greeted Flight BA292 as it arrived from Washington’s Dulles International Airport at around 10am.
A BA spokeswoman said flight crew requested the priority landing as a ‘precaution’.
"The flight has landed safely and customers have left the aircraft as normal. Our highly trained engineers are inspecting the aircraft to determine what the issue was.
"The safety of our customers and crew is always our main concern and our highly trained pilots will never compromise this."
The Boeing 777 aircraft is the same model that caught fire on a runway in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The large majority of passengers caught up in Tuesday’s incident have now been flown back to the UK.
BA said on Friday it was continuing to help the small numbers of customers who have decided to fly in the coming days.
It has offered counselling services to passengers who want it.
"We appreciate this has been a very difficult time for our customers, and we have set up a special customer care team to help them with any extra support they need," said a spokeswoman.
Initial inspections into the fire by the US’s National Transportation Safety Board found there were ‘multiple breaches’ of the engine case in the area around the high pressure compressor.
The NTSB report said several pieces of the high pressure compressor spool, around 7-8 inches in length, were found on the runway.
Investigations continue.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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