Etihad Jet lands Stansted tailed in by Fighter Jet
 

11.55 hrs an Etihad Passenger Jet landed at Stansted, tailed in by what looked like a Eurofighter ( Delta Wings and Canards)

Fighter jet overflew runway - then circled 3 times before lighting afterburners and headed NE.

No aircraft movements since ( 20 mins)

Any ideas anyone ??

Possibly similar reason as other STN arrivals, such as Ariana 727 a few yrs ago?

Maybe someone had overindulged in the in-flight booze...

http://www.lbc.co.uk/747- reportedly-escorted-into-stansted- by-raf-35356

Just to fix the link 747 Escorted Into Stansted by RAF | LBC

it was etihad flight 019 to LHR, one disruptive pax, apparent air rage.

the aircraft taxied into position onto stand near to the Titan hangar where armed police entered the aircraft and bought the man out. He was seemingly told to 'spread em' on the tarmac then taken into a waiting police vehicle.

The aircraft is still sitting with the rear right hand door open surrounded by security vehicles.

I guess now the pax and bags will be offloaded and taken to LHR.

quite a sight!

oh, and it was an A346....nothing like a B744!

Yeah, LBC now rowing back on the type.

Nice spot by Tarmac junkie though.

It also shows you that if you make these sort of comments, not only will you have to 'spread em' for the old bill you will probably have to part em for Big Gary your cell mate....:eek:

well the security vehicles seem to be slowly dispersing now and a pushback tug has gone over toward the aircraft. Seems as if the aircraft will carry all pax and baggage down to LHR shortly.

I hope 'Big Gary' gets his way with this one....!

npf and thanks for your eye-witness stuff as well. :ok:

apparently a drunk scotsman was the cause of all of this.....

And what was the Eurofighter supposed to do? Shoot him through a cabin window or while lying on the tarmac :rolleyes: ?

So every time a passenger gets noisy they'll have Typhoons bombing around? I find this all very scary and too knee-jerky for comfort...

I too was surprised to see the Typhoon beating up STN earlier today and was wondering why. Now I know! Presumably the last time that pax will ever set foot in a commercial aircraft.

Regarding your comment HD, if the 'disruptive pax' situation developed into a hijack situation and the aircraft took a turn towards central London then the Typhoon would be there, ready to do what was necessary. Nobody wants another 9-11 and a failure to react would not be acceptable second time round.

<<if the 'disruptive pax' situation developed into a hijack situation and the aircraft took a turn towards central London then the Typhoon would be there, ready to do what was necessary. >>

There aren't too many places, if any, on air routes in southern England where it would be "safe" to shoot down a commercial airliner. If it took place anywhere close to London the carnage would be horrendous. There is a way for the pilot to communicate to ATC various stages of emergency so it would be interesting to know if that occurred, although I doubt we shall ever know.

Never saw the "second" Typhoon - assume he was the "wingman", and was circling above cloud base, while the chase plane did his aerobatics over STN.
Should put the willies up any potential aggressor though - even though we've scrapped our Harriers and Ark Royal, we can still chase unarmed passenger jets around. Be afraid - be very afraid !

HD,

Safe is relative. Such a situation would be selecting the lesser of two evils.

TT... Agreed.. and I wouldn't like to be the person making the decision.

As Tony Blair has shown, making the decision is easy. Pulling the trigger is the tricky bit.

It would have to have been a Eurofighter, a Tornado wouldn't be able to catch an A340!

i bet the remaining pax onboard were glum, still onboard when the ac was towed at 1530