Emergency Landing @ Heathrow, 0930 Mon 22nd March

[Conor.P.M]

I was on an SAS flight from Heathrow to Copenhagen yesterday morning. Our MD-90 pushed back at about 0915 and taxied out for takeoff. We queued on a taxiwaay parallel to the the runway and from my window I could see that our aircraft was one of several aircraft amongst the Aer Lingus, BA and BMI Airbuses waiting it's turn to take off on Runway 09R. I watched two BA A320's take off followed by what appeared to be a HS-125 that had come from the Terminal 4 side of the Airport (judging by it's livery it may have been a RAF jet, it reminded me of the livery used on the Royal flight BAe-146's, white fuselage, red topped tail with a Union Jack). At this stage it was about 0930

After the HS-125 took off none of the waiting aircraft lined up on the runway and our Captain announced that there would be a delay of several minutes due to an emergency landing. After approximately five minutes a BA 777 landed on 09R. I assumed that the 777 was the aircraft involved in the emergency landing, but I was somewhat surprised when a few minutes later an all white DC-8 landed. Once it cleared the runway the waiting aircraft resumed takeoffs from 09R

I'm a regular traveler at Heathrow and I don't think I've ever seen a DC-8 at the airport in the last 10 years. My knowledge of the DC-8 is very limited but I'm resonably confident that it was one of the eariler shorter versions of the DC-8. It didn't appear to be a freighter and it didn't have any company or operaters name painted on it, just white with a blue cheatline and very clean.

Does anyone have any aditional information about this 'emergency landing', it wasn't exactly exciting but it was a brake from the normal Monday morning experience at Heathrow.

[leonbrumsack]

The aircraft which you saw was P4-DCE, an executive DC8, which is available for charter.
I believe the aircraft was running low on fuel, having been in the hold for quite some time. Having declared a fuel emergency, the aircraft was given priority to land and brought in on 09R.
Hope this helps!
Leon

[eastern wiseguy]

declared a fuel emergency


wonder what that is?.....no such animal in UK ATC ...

[Jerricho]

wonder what that is?.....no such animal in UK ATC ...

Wiseguy.................

;)

[BOH]

So why was the BA T7 allowed to land before the DC-8, I thought normally the ''sea's split'' so to say, all aircraft on approach would go around and no aircraft would take off from that runway until after the emergency ended?

I remember hearing very recently of a BA T7 with fuel pouring from its wing tip at heathrow, I think on airliners.net, could this have been the one?!

BOH

[CosmosSchwartz]

So why was the BA T7 allowed to land before the DC-8

Possibly because the 777 was at a late stage in its approach with a significant gap between it and the DC-8. No point in telling the 777 to go-around or remain in the bottom of the hold if the other aircraft is shuttling through the hold from FL080 or wherever it may have been.

Had the DC-8 been on fire or falling apart however, I'm sure the "parting of the seas" would have happened. (All pure speculation on my part in an attempt to answer BOH's question. I have no knowledge of the actual events on the day.)

[Warped Factor]

It's more likely in these scenarios that the emergency traffic lands on 09L, the normal easterly arrival runway, as it's probably already set up for landing on that runway from some way out.

When there's such traffic landing a large gap on the approach is required behind the emergency traffic for the fire service to follow down if necessary and then a runway inspection afterwards.

If there are inbound delays, depending on the size of the gap required behind the emergency traffic, two or three arrivals may land on the departure runway. That helps keep any additional delay caused by the emergency inbound to a minimum.

The circumstances as described suggest to me that neither of the a/c you saw land on 09R were the actual "emergency" a/c, it was probably over on 09L.

WF.