понедельник, 12 марта 2012 г.

50-plus flights canceled at Heathrow Friday due to crash landing incident

More than 50 flights from Heathrow airport had been canceled early Friday in the continuing disruption caused by a crash landing at Europe's busiest airport.

Investigators were analyzing why a British Airways Boeing 777 made a crunching touchdown short of the runway on Thursday, ripping off the plane's landing gear and severely damaging the two engines and wings.

Nineteen injuries were reported among the 152 people aboard. The crumpled aircraft remained at the end of one of Heathrow's two runways Friday.

British Airways said it expected to operate all of its long-haul flights from Heathrow on Friday and 90 percent of short-haul operations.

"At this stage, we are working hard to restore near-normal operations. However, it is extremely important that passengers due to fly from Heathrow today contact their airline regarding the status of their flight," airport owner BAA PLC said.

Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch was leading the investigation of the incident.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board also dispatched a team to assist in the investigation.

David Gleave, chief safety investigator at Aviation Hazard Analysis, a private company, said a bird strike or fuel shortage would be among the possibilities investigators would consider.

"I think at the moment we have such good systems on board the airplane for recording what's gone on, and the airplane is in a pretty good state to be able to retrieve these recorders fairly quickly, that they should have gotten the information out and be analyzing it during today," Gleave told the BBC.

"So toward the end of today the investigators will start to have some idea of what went wrong," though further examination may be necessary, Gleave said.

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