[Anonymous]

[BigDog.]

Emergency Landing Closed BOTH Runways.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22652718

“Black smoke trail” from the engine of a British Airways Airbus A319.

A safe landing and passengers evacuated by chutes on runway.”

The southern runway has since re-opened. The northern runway remains closed.

23 flights redirected so far.

[BigDog.]

LHR are advising today’s pax to contact their carrier to ascertain whether their flight has been affected.

[BA744fan]

Looks like most flights out are being delayed 2 hours,

http://www.heathrowairport.com/flight-information/live-flight-departures

[BigDog.]

BA have cancelled all short haul flights through 4pm.

Over 200 flights cancelled or heavily delayed the news is reporting.

Bird strike is the initial speculated cause.

The casing cover was torn from one engine with a fire in the other.

[AnthonyDunn]

@ BigDog. – 24/05/2013 12:03 GMT

Err, the LHR departure board is showing selective cancellations and most departures delayed by up to several hours. But no blanket BA cancellations up to 16:00.

EDITED: Big Dog was entirely correct – as the updated LHR departures board now shows.

What surprises me is the decision to close BOTH runways when there was a plane stuck on just one runway. How on earth can NATS and/or Heathrow operations justify that decision when the two runways are sufficiently far apart to allow completely independent simultaneous landings/departures? Utterly bizarre and bewildering IMO.

[BigDog.]

Anthony, am merely passing on the BBC news feed which is reporting no short haul BA until 4pm.

..”The southern and northern runways have since reopened but BA have cancelled all short haul flights until 16:00 BST. “

As to both runways I guess as it appears that both engines were impacted then controlling the aircraft would have been compromised.

[Guest_Poster]

AnthonyDunn – 24/05/2013 12:09 GMT

It is necessary to close runways that do not have fire service provision and as the fire service would be heavily committed to one runway, closure of the other would quickly follow.

As the aircraft is missing both L and R cowlings, there may be more to the story than the initial reported bird strikes. A32x aircraft require TLC in ensuring that the cowl fasteners under the engines are secure, since the weight of the cowls means they can look secured, even when they are not.

It would be highly embarrassing if the aircraft departed with unfastened cowls, although it is far too early to draw such a conclusion and the AAIB will get to the bottom of the incident and report in good time.

[Travellator]

Great professional Piloting in what was a frightening event. Obviously a very well controlled one engine landing.

Was somewhat surprised when watching the raw video footage in the Dail Mail how many people managed to exit the aircraft using the safety chutes and emerging with their hand baggage – I thought these items were to be left onboard.

Main thing is every one is safe and uninjured if a little traumatised.

[Guest_Poster]

Travellator – 24/05/2013 12:33 GMT

It may not have been an engine out landing, if I understand the reports, it might have been the left engine shut down and the right engine on fire or having suffered a fire, which is more complicated.

[Travellator]

Even better piloting if one engine down and the other on fire !

[canucklad]

Great news that everybody is safe and well and the crew as expected did a professional and well executed emergency landing…

The incident once again demonstrates the need for our procrastinating politicians to get their finger out their arse….and get the runway capacity sorted…even if it means deciding on “LHR 3”

[Travellator]

At least one runway was by and large operational – at a single runway airport eg LGW the entire airport would shut down and NO flights would take off or land.

[BigDog.]

Re LGW, am not so sure Travellator @ 12:43. I thought LGW had a parallel runway which is used when the other is out of commission – cleared of snow or being relayed. So LGW can cope with an outage, but as they are so close they cannot be used at the same time.

Edit – Travellator – Great Piloting +1

[Travellator]

Not so sure Big Dog only ever seen one runway being used at LGW – look at Google Maps. If there is and too close for use at the same time a stricken aircraft would render it inoperable surely.

[Author]

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