178 flights cancelled during shutdown after Oslo-bound plane turns back shortly after takeoff due to technical fault
Both of Heathrow airport's runways have reopened after a British Airways plane trailing smoke made an emergency landing on Friday morning, leading to a temporary shutdown and the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
The flight, heading to Oslo from Heathrow, returned to the airport shortly after taking off at 8.16am due to a technical fault. Airport officials initially shut both runways but soon reopened the southern strip. The northern runway was reopened at 10.45am.
BA said it had cancelled all of its short-haul flights in and out of Heathrow until 4pm. The airline had been expecting its busiest day of the bank holiday period with 128,000 passengers due to travel.
It had planned to carry more than 463,000 customers over the extended weekend, with 116,000 due to fly on bank holiday Monday.
Witnesses under the flightpath saw flames and smoke coming from the Airbus A319 plane as it came in to land over west London.
One man who was working in a garden in Chelsea when the plane flew overheard said he feared something terrible was about to happen when he saw flames coming from the engine.
"It was very low and horrendous to watch," a man named Jamie told Sky News. "It's the kind of thing you see on Seconds from Disaster.
"There was loads of flames coming from the back of the right engine as it came over us. The noise was like a fighter jet … [The engine] was on full fire when we saw it."
Another witness, named only as Aiden, said he was driving to Heathrow and had to slow down as he was worried debris might fall from the plane.
He told LBC 97.3's Nick Ferrari: "I thought to myself it was just the swirl of the wingtips and then I thought it was just too much for one side and I realised it was smoke. The plane's coming right over the top of my head and I've had it."
David Gallagher, who was a passenger on the flight to Oslo, said "big flames" were visible from the cabin.
Gallagher told BBC News: "About eight or nine minutes into the flight there was a loud popping sound – not an explosion but definitely not usual sounds.
"There was some concern from passengers – people gasping and louder exclamations. The captain came on very calmly, said he was aware of the situation and that everything was running normally and he was going to run some tests to see what the right course would be.
"Then another five minutes after that there was a loud sound, and this time the right engine was clearly on fire. I mean, big flames, very visible from the rest of the cabin and lots of black smoke.
"There was no disruption to the flight at all, even when it was clear we were down to one engine.
"A few passengers were upset understandably, especially those on the right side of the plane. The cabin crew and the ground crew were outstanding and completely calm, reassuring and professional during the whole incident."
Gallagher, who works in communications and tweeted pictures of the incident, joked: "I will definitely pay attention to the [safety] briefings from now on."
Emergency services arrived at the scene and 75 passengers and crew were safely evacuated on emergency slides. Three people were treated for minor injuries, according to the London ambulance service.
London Fire Brigade said a crew from Heathrow fire station assisted the airport's fire service with an aircraft fire, which had been put out.
A Heathrow spokeswoman said 178 flights had been cancelled as a result of the incident. She added that departures were suffering an average delay of 22 minutes but the disruption to arrivals was within the normal range of about 15 minutes.
British Airways said it was caring for its customers and would be carrying out a full investigation into the incident, which will also be examined by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
Pictures taken from inside the plane in Friday's incident showed an inspection cover loose on the left-hand engine.
David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight Global publication, said: "This cover is to a plane what a bonnet is to a car. It should not have been open. Something caused it to be dislodged.
"Pictures of the plane flying with smoke coming from it indicate that the aircraft was being powered entirely by the left-hand engine. Most likely there was external damage to both engines.
"Damage of this kind is consistent with a bird strike although at this stage we just don't what happened."
Captain Mark Searle, chairman of airline pilots' association Balpa, said: "This was a professional job done by professional people. As pilots we spend our whole career training to manage incidents such as this in order to avoid an incident becoming a disaster.
"Balpa representatives will be assisting the pilots involved in this incident and providing whatever support they need. And, as always, we will all learn whatever lessons we can."
There was speculation that the aircraft might have run into a flock of birds, but there was no official confirmation. Bird strikes are a serious problem for aircraft and have been known to bring planes down
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