Just found this on the BBC website, does anyone know anymore?
Plane in Gatwick fire emergency
The planes both eventually landed safely at Gatwick Airport
A Boeing 757 carrying 70 passengers had to make an emergency landing at Gatwick amid fears the plane was on fire.
The British Airways (BA) aircraft was one of two planes forced to make emergency landings at the West Sussex airport within minutes of each other on Sunday evening.
The plane was heading from Heathrow to Paris but was diverted to Gatwick after the pilot smelt burning in the cockpit, BA said.
Minutes earlier another Boeing 757 had to make an emergency landing after vibrations in one of its engines.
Pilots given oxygen
The BA plane heading for Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport was safely landed at Gatwick shortly after 1900 BST with fire crews from the airport and West Sussex Fire Brigade waiting.
We do not want any question mark over the seriousness with which we take these incidents
British Airways spokesman
Paramedics were also at the scene in case any passengers needed attention but nobody was injured.
A spokesman for the airline said oxygen masks had dropped down for the pilots but not for passengers as there was only a burning smell in the cockpit.
He said: “There was a smell of burning in the cockpit.
“Masks were deployed for the flight crew only because there was no indication that there was a smell in the cabin.
“As a precaution, the fire services were on the runway.
“Passengers walked off the aircraft with their belongings.
Vibration in engine
“The plane was diverted and fire crews were in attendance.
“We encourage that because we do not want any question mark over the seriousness with which we take these incidents.”
Engineers carried out an inspection of the plane and the passengers continued their journey on another scheduled flight from Gatwick to Paris.
Minutes earlier, another Boeing 757 had also been diverted to Gatwick.
The Thomas Cook flight, from Mahon in the Balearic Islands to Birmingham, was landed at Gatwick after the pilot detected a vibration in one of the engines.
A spokesman for the holiday firm said the plane could have flown to Birmingham safely but landed at Gatwick to make the flight more comfortable for passengers.
He said the engine had not shut down but had begun vibrating over the south coast so it was decided the plane should touch down at Gatwick, where the firm has an engineering centre.
The passengers again continued their journey on another plane.
By: Ren Frew - 9th September 2003 at 10:27
Originally posted by Charley B
Dont knock Dundee chaps!!
I was born there in Broughty Ferry!Been down here though since I was three!
I quite like Dundee actually, especially since they’ve done it up. 😀
By: Charley B - 9th September 2003 at 10:18
Dont knock Dundee chaps!!
I was born there in Broughty Ferry!Been down here though since I was three!
By: wysiwyg - 9th September 2003 at 10:08
Ye gods, I never expected to stand corrected on this one!
By: Duesseldwarf - 8th September 2003 at 21:40
Ahhhh! How I miss the Dundee Courier in the morning for the stories that they’ve obviously had to go out and look for.
Some classic examples there though Ren!!
Dean.
By: Ren Frew - 8th September 2003 at 21:24
Originally posted by wysiwyg
Funny how you never see the headline in the paper saying ‘shock horror, number 73 bus returns to depot with rattling exhaust!!!’
You do in The Greenock Telegraph, in fact once they had a front page story about a lamp-post that stayed on for 3 weeks and upset a woman who’s flat it was outside. The best thing about that headline was the attached text saying “see photo, page 7”
I kid ye not ! 😎
Of course you get a better class of “diddy” story in the Paisley Daily Express, which once reported on a man who’d been fined for creosoting his fence without the appropriate permission ! :rolleyes:
By: wysiwyg - 8th September 2003 at 19:28
No. nothing to do with me! I have to admit I too thought it was rather funny that an airline spokesperson said that the pilots were on drop down oxygen! We don’t have drop down masks in the flightdeck. In fact I wonder if the airline spokesmans comments were just misrepresented by the media?
wrt the TCX 757, it’s amazing how the media don’t want to accept the difference between a precautionary landing and an emergency landing. Of course a precautionary landing (as Moondance correctly states at a maintenance base) doesn’t sell papers so perhaps they’d better jazz it up a bit! Funny how you never see the headline in the paper saying ‘shock horror, number 73 bus returns to depot with rattling exhaust!!!’
By: A330Crazy - 8th September 2003 at 18:59
It wasn’t Wys was it in the TCX 757????:confused: 🙁
By: Moondance - 8th September 2003 at 13:31
Yawn……..usual tabloid reporting from the BBC. Anyone remember when BBC News used to be accurate? “Pilots given oxygen” as a sub-headline – give me strength…the crew would have put on their oxygen masks as part of the checklist actions, they would not been “given” oxygen, nor would oxygen “dropped down” in the flightdeck.
As for the TCX diversion, the engine vibration may well have been apparent for some time during the flight (unusual but not uncommon) and maybe the decision was made to divert into a TCX engineering base – pure speculation on my part that, but still hardly worth the breathless news coverage.
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September 8, 2003 at 12:41 pm