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BA Jet Crash Lands at London City Airport, All Aboard Okay

February 14, 2009 at 2:14 PM | by | Comments (0)

Passengers and crew on a British Airways flight arriving in London Friday night got a serious scare as the plane's nose wheel collapsed during landing, sending the Avro 146 RJ100 skidding down the runway until it came to a stop. None of the 67 passengers and four crew members were killed, but one suffered minor injuries during the evacuation, which involved those deployable exit slides that would probably be a lot of fun outside of emergency situations. The flight originated in Amsterdam and was touching down at London City Airport, a single-runway airport for STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) airliners that primarily serves the city's financial district, when the nose gear buckled with a resounding boom.

According to passengers, the evacuation was calm at first, but tempers began to flare as the cabin filled with smoke. Apparently, some people were taking a bit too long to file out the rear exits, annoying those behind them who were worried that the aircraft might erupt into flames as they dawdled. Fortunately, everybody eventually made it to the terminal, where they were served food and drinks by airport staff. We can't help but wonder if that includes booze, because if there's ever a situation where you can safely say "this calls for a drink," it's that one.

The incident comes in the wake of Thursday's terrible Continental Airlines crash near Buffalo, New York, which took the lives of 49 passengers, including a 9/11 widow and two prominent jazz musicians. The BA crash landing has a much happier ending, of course, but the recent spate of air crashes makes us pine for the days when no news was good news in the airline world.

[Photo: AFP via msnbc.com]

Related Stories:
· Jet Crash-Lands at London Airport [AP via msnbc.com]
· British Airways Coverage [Jaunted]

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