Emergency landing at Heathrow airport causes delays for Bank Holiday weekend

Heathrow airport was closed after a British Airways flight made an emergency landing this morning.

The BA 762 flight was en route to Oslo carrying 75 passengers in an Airbus A319 and took off around 7.55am.

All passengers and crew were safely evacuated from the plane when it landed on the Northern runway. It is believed that the plane ran into a flock of birds. Witnesses said that the plane had smoke trailing from the right engine as it flew over London. Another man said he saw flames and heard a noise like a fighter jet.

The fire brigade attended from Heathrow to assist the airport’s own fire service and although both runways were closed initially, the southern runway was later re-opened. However, the incident is likely to cause some disruption to flights over the bank holiday weekend. Passengers on resumed flights at Heathrow were being warned to expect delays of 30-60 minutes as well as 30 minutes of aircraft taxiing time.

A number of flights have been diverted to Stansted to help clear the backlog of delayed flights.

If you are travelling today from or into London Heathrow, please check your flight status on http://t.co/8YS9XJXYRM.