Video
'DON'T ROCK THE PLANE'
British Airways jet makes emergency landing at Heathrow after landing gear FAILS
Passengers told to leave plane "very slowly" in case it toppled over on the runway in terrifying ordeal
THIS is the terrifying moment a British Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing after its landing gear failed.
More than 300 passengers were on-board the BA flight from Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare when the landing gear on both wings failed mid-air after the lever to deploy the gear got stuck in the “up position”.
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Passengers were told “not to rock the plane” and leave “very slowly” for fear of it TOPPLING OVER.
An Air Accidents Investigation report, released today, said the terrifying incident was due to a mechanical error after the plane's latest service.
It reads: “Passengers reported the crew advised they were returning to London due to a technical problem.
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"About 20 minutes prior to landing the crew announced that the landing gear did not fully extend with only three of five sets of gear having lowered.
"After the aircraft was towed to the apron, passengers were told to disembark very slowly….otherwise the aircraft would tip over and settle on its tail.”
The Boeing was forced to turn back to Heathrow after reporting a "technical problem" 160nm south of Keflavik in Iceland on January 30.
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On approaching the London airport the pilots reported an unsafe gear indication for both main gear and only the nose and body wheels descended.
The plane circled to dump fuel before landing on only the nose and body wheels 20 minutes later - but was forced to travel the whole length of the runway when it landed because braking power was halved.
The runway was closed for an hour after the incident, which left 293 passengers waiting another NINE HOURS for a replacement jet.
The plane, which also had 17 crew on-board, was making its first flight since maintenance on January 24.
The report added: "The jammed landing gear lever was attributed to a rig pin not being inserted in the landing gear system during maintenance, which led to additional and unnecessary shims being used to rig the landing gear lever."
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It also identified the contributing factors of "the distraction of the engineer when he saw the quadrant move and he took his break, deficiencies in the operator’s task card system,the omission of the need to fit the rig pin in the operator’s TR for this task and an inadequate handover between the night shift and the day shift."
The emergency happened on January 30 2016 but details of the terrifying ordeal were released today.
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