Virgin landing gear incident LGW!
 

There's a Virgin jumbo holding at Mayfield with what appears to be some of its gear down. Very clear day and it's quite low.

Has been over Wivelsfield/Haywards Heath twice, much lower than other traffic. Nosewheel down and flaps extended?

Indeed, it is low at around 2,000ft. Seems it has already been out to sea and back and even executed an approach.

http://s3.postimg.org/twmcl1ttb/image.jpg

http://s29.postimg.org/s6u2w1uz7/Capture.jpg

https://twitter.com/hashtag/VS43?src=hash

Right wing landing gear issues aparrently

Better pic here

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6B6dM4IUAAe5zj.jpg

After another 1,000ft fly by, it's turned towards the South Coast, the usual spot for fuel dumping it would seem. Doesn't sound like the gear issue has been resolved, I suspect the next approach will be to land, hoping the gear stays up. Emergency vehicles now in attendance.

It went outbound at 11.45 .. it looks like one side of the gear is not down when it went past here earlier

Apparently one gear down and one up - emergency services heading to LGW.

Just came over me. Still no right main gear down.

My neighbour has a family member working at LGW. Says plane was in the hangar yesterday for a similar issue.

Right gear won't drop it would appear?

Just passed over my house again nose wheel definitely down and one set of main gear definitely down.

Heading out to sea again.

A further photo a few minutes ago from Twitter user @SamPilcher

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6CDIG3CMAAqLLC.jpg

Virgin Atlantic gear fault
 

I'm following it on Planefinder, as a pilot I feel for them but cannot just turn it off.
It does make you wonder about instant gratification, to some extent I wish I didn't know - what I am doing is nothing else but rubbernecking I suppose.

It's still orbiting over Brighton.

Close up

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6CDIG3CMAAqLLC.jpg:large

Whats the protocol for this.

Wheels up ?

or

Wheels down ?

Never wheels up, land on the remaining ones, much safer than engines on ground scraping along wheels up like a fantasy movie.
Reduce weight as much as possible, standard operation in this case.
The fly by could be to allow tower controllers to see (and possibly engineers invited to observe from tower view) what the actual problem is as in the flight deck indication may be that gear is not up but equally not down, unable to establish in what position the gear actually is.

Thats the normal position for them to be in.

VS43
 

The LH wing gear is supposed to look like that. Normal tilt position.

All available gear down - with one wing gear up it will wobble a bit and will need to be towed off the runway - we used to practice this in the sim on a regular basis and with the light wind conditions not a problem.