A British Airways plane on a flight from China crash-landed
short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport yesterday. Four
people were slightly injured.
Fire engines smothered the Boeing 777 in foam after it landed
with its wings extensively damaged and its undercarriage
wrecked.
"I won the lottery today," Fernando Prado, one of the 136
passengers on board, said after being safely evacuated by emergency
chute from the wreckage.
He said the landing gear appeared to fail. "I saw the engine on
the tarmac. Everything was over quickly. There was no panic at
all," he told BBC News.
An airport spokeswoman said: "BA Flight 38 arriving from Beijing
made an emergency landing at 12:42. Passengers have been
evacuated."
Airport authorities warned some flights would be delayed or
cancelled. Normally, about 40 flights an hour touch down at
Heathrow with a further 40 taking off.
The ambulance service said three people were slightly
injured.
British Airways said it had no comment to offer on why the plane
came down.
A London police spokeswoman said: "There is nothing to suggest
it is terror-related."
Witness John Rowland told the BBC: "It crashed into the runway,
debris was flying everywhere, there was an enormous bang and it
skidded sideways."
The impact tore the undercarriage and damaged both wings.
Another eyewitness, Steve Bell, said the wheels were not down on
landing, and he heard a grating noise.
"It turned about 90 degrees on landing. Its wheels were not
down. Within minutes fire crews arrived and evacuated all the
passengers," he told BBC News 24 television.
Among the planes delayed was a flight British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown was taking on an official trip to China and India.
The plane was about 1 km away but those onboard could see the
incident in the distance.
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(China Daily via Agencies January 18, 2008)
