V-Flyer

I note this flight has declared Sqwark 7700 and appears to be returning LGW. Anyone any idea why? http://www.flightradar24.com/2012-04-16/11:09/VIR27X

You beat me to it..., just noticed that myself. Not sure why, sure someone will know.

Smoke in the cockpit, gatwick currently closed as its still on runway

Thank you for the update.

Apparently it's on the ground G-VSXY and emergency evacuation using slides ... on the runway i think, so must have been a real scare!

oh no, been doing the Glasgow round trips to MCO the past few weekends I am also due on it shortly, wonder if it will go tech for a while, even more so with slides activated.

There were a few minor injuries during evacuation of aircraft, Lgw expected to be closed until 2pm

Seen some photos on twitter, looks as though it was a smoke/fire alert and the aircraft was evacuated using the emergency slides on the runway itself. Scary incident for those involved.

clarkeysntfc who do you follow on twitter for posts like the pictures etc??

All over the news now... all flights in and out of LGW suspended.

I'ts just been on the BBC 1 o'clock news, hope everyone is ok it looked really scary.

Sorry guys didnt see a thread already on this! Hope everybody on board got off safely!

Just search 'Gatwick' on twitter, plenty of pics in there. Don't know how to copy them on to here using an iPhone!

Scary stuff - fingers crossed everybody onboard is okay.

We are due to fly on the VS027 in exactly 2 weeks time - makes me a bit more nervous about our flight!

Not sure if I can post this but here's a tweet with a photo of her on the runway with slides out.

https://twitter.com/#!/lornawillson/status/191858026414743554/photo/1

There's an ITV article with video

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/ ... y-landing/

A bad day for Squark 7700's.
American Airlines B752, reg N199AN from MAN to JFK Flt No AAL211 had to return to MAN as well.

Looks like everyone is safe and well. Not nice for those involved but praise must be given to the flightdeck crew and the cabin crew.

Apparently it was a fire in the rear hold with smoke entering the cabin. How true this is I don't know but it make more sense than a fire in the cockpit.

Of course with it being a full emergency I doubt she will have been able to fuel dump as much fuel as would be normal and therefore she would have had a very heavy landing. I would imagine that there will have been some considerable stress on the aircraft and she will be out of action for quite a while.

It was definitely smoke in the cockpit reported on the RT with no indication of cause,though rumours seem to be about a fire in the cargo bay now

I watched the flight track - I assumed they'd orbit to dump fuel - but they went straight down - so must have been a very heavy landing.

willd wrote: I would imagine that there will have been some considerable stress on the aircraft and she will be out of action for quite a while.

This could cause some serious headaches for the ops team. Not only does it mean they could be an a/c down, but an A330, of which there are only 2 so some serious replanning of the fleet to be done over the next few days/weeks.

They will already need an extra flight to MCO to get the pax from the 27 today out there, plus the 28 pax back tonight, and with the return flights being very full after Easter, not easy to merge two together.

G-VRAY into service early??

AvHerald suggesting cargo hold fire indication:

http://avherald.com/h?article=44e15a5f&opt=0

Fire on board is a very serious event, so they will not have spent any time dumping fuel.

It's possible from the very limited info available, that this was a detector malfunction, but you don't take chances with things like that.

An extremely heavy landing, tires deflated due to heavy breaking and the sheer amount of energy to discipate - lots and lots of maintenance checks to do...

If ever there was a sober reminder to pay attention to the safety briefings, this is it.

jeez thank goodness everyone got off safe. well done the flight crew. 27 for me in 11 days time but a 747 not a 330....