BA passenger jet crash lands at Heathrow

A British Airways jet travelling from China has crash landed several hundred yards short of Heathrow's southern runway.Flight BA38's 136 passengers, 13 cabin and three flight crew were evacuated and six passengers were taken to nearby Hillingdon Hospital with minor injuries, a London Ambulance spokeswoman said.The Boeing 777, which had flown in from Beijing, landed just yards from a busy perimeter road and the impact wrecked the undercarriage of the plane and caused extensive damage to both wings.Emergency chutes were deployed but Scotland Yard said there were no reports of serious injuries. A spokesman also said there was no suggestion that terrorism was involved.The incident happened as Prime Minister Gordon Brown was due to leave Heathrow for China and India. His flight was delayed because of the incident but his jet was not involved directly.There has been major disruption to both incoming and departing flights and passengers have been asked to contact their individual airlines for more information. BA has issued a helpline number 0800Six ambulances, two fast response cars and a hazardous response team were scrambled while around six fire engines attended the scene and the stricken jet was surrounded by a sea of firefighting foam.Passenger Jason Johnson said: "We came in very, very fast. It's something I've never been in before. Once it landed, it spun 90 degrees. I felt like I was in a washing machine."The plane then came to a complete halt. We were told by the hostesses 'Please evacuate, follow our guidance'." When the plane came in fast, then slid after landing, "you knew you were in real trouble", he said."I was worried about the fuel, bursting into flames, the wings were making cracking sounds, the sound was very, very loud."Airport worker Martin Green said: "It came in at a very high angle and just dropped likea stone - I would estimate 200 feet." He added: "It's the first time I've seen anything like that, and I hope it's the last."It seemed to be flying fairly slow and it had a very high angle of attack. The nose was high up in the air, which is very unusual."Jerome Ensinck said he thought the flight had simply suffered a particularly hard landing."When we hit the ground it was extremely rough, but I've had rough landings before and I thought 'This is the roughest I've had'."Then the emergency exits were opened and we were all told we should go through as quickly as possible, and the moment I was away from the plane I started to realise that the undercarriage was away, and we had missed the runway."I feel lucky at the moment, but I think now I realise I've had a close call. If we had hit the runway, it would have been worse."BA chief executive Willie Walsh said: "Regrettably one of our aircraft has been involved in an incident today at Heathrow. Our flight and cabin crew did a magnificent job and safely evacuated all of the 136 passengers."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."An investigation is being conducted by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch so it would be inappropriate to speculate about the likely cause of this incident."I would also like to praise the fire, ambulance and police services."© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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ITN | January 17, 2008

Tags:. .captain. .firefighting. .roughest. .flames. .delayed