Gear colapse at Biggin
 

Did nobody else notice that Biggin was closed last night due to a King Air in the middle of runway sans gear? Lots of diversions and extra night stops as the crane required had to come from Le Touquet....I kid you not.

It was an unfortunate mishap with a King Air 200 which left it alongside the runway but sufficiently close to form an obstacle.

The declared distances for the runway were recalculated to allow for this obstacle and operations re-started for those types that could accept the reduced length.

The Le Touquet reference is a bit misleading.......the engineering team needed to recover this aircraft were on their way home from France after attending a similar incident (or so I am told). As soon as they arrived they applied their technical expertise and removed the blockage.

Regards

SATCO Biggin