Landing Gear Fault On Virgin Atlantic Plane Circling UK [BREAKING][Update: Landed safely!] - Polidicks

[quote] Virgin Atlantic has confirmed there is a landing gear problem with a flight thought to be circling over the coast of Sussex. The Boeing 747 jumbo is preparing for a "non standard landing" at Gatwick because of a "technical issue with one of the landing gears", said a statement. It is currently in a holding pattern near Newhaven, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. Experts believe the flight may have been dumping fuel. Flight VS43 took off at 11.44am from Gatwick and was heading to Las Vegas. Twitter users have reported seeing emergency vehicles heading for the West Sussex airport. A tweet by the airport said: "In line with standard procedure, emergency services are on standby at the airport purely as a precaution." Flight data appears to show the aircraft made it to the South West before turning back. [/quote] [URL]http://news.sky.com/story/1399293/landing-gear-fault-on-virgin-plane-circling-uk[/URL] Live on flightradar24: [URL]http://www.flightradar24.com/VIR43E/526ac78[/URL] [IMG]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10518681/Screenshots/2014-12-29_15-31-56.png[/IMG] Terrifying. I wish them the best of luck. Update: landed safely at 15:50 - [URL]http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/virgin-atlantic-vs43-emergency-live-4889011[/URL]

Damn that has to suck. Keeping them in my thoughts.

Should hopefully be a relatively safe landing with all the fuel dumped. * I seem to be recalling Hapag-Lloyd Flight 3378, the landing gear could not retract fully and ran out of fuel midflight before making their alternative airport, crash landed without a fire as there was no fuel; zero deaths.

747's a pretty big bird to land, even worse one of the engines could catch when it lands. I'm sure It'll be fine though, best of luck to the passengers.

According to flightradar24, the plane appears to be exiting a holding pattern on the South coast and heading towards Gatwick again: [IMG]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10518681/Screenshots/2014-12-29_15-41-27.png[/IMG]

At least it's not a serious emergency like an engine on fire and they have and airport and tons of time to prepare and slow down for the landing, it'll be fine as long as the pilot takes it slow and the engines don't catch on anything (they shouldn't since it's a flat airstrip)

Best of luck with the lithobraking

Apparently it has landed successfully. [URL="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/virgin-atlantic-vs43-emergency-live-4889011"]http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/virgin-atlantic-vs43-emergency-live-4889011[/URL]

[img]http://u.rtag.me/p/0TzAnU.png[/img] yep looks landed alright

Landed safely, all round good news right now

It's very important which gear it is and whether it's stuck down or up. A landing with the nose gear stuck up has been done before and is relatively simple and straightforward. Some other combinations would be more challenging and certainly more dangerous to land. Of course, this seems to be happening under optimal conditions, so it will most likely be absolutely fine. Edit: and it is! Hopefully there'll be a video of the landing.

dunno bout video but there's a picture [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6CMDh0CAAAeMDB.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Stopper;46815935]It's very important which gear it is and whether it's stuck down or up. A landing with the nose gear stuck up has been done before and is relatively simple and straightforward. Some other combinations would be more challenging and certainly more dangerous to land. Of course, this seems to be happening under optimal conditions, so it will most likely be absolutely fine. Edit: and it is! Hopefully there'll be a video of the landing.[/QUOTE] The link Cabbalistic posted seemed to indicate that the right main landing gear was stuck up. The plane still had the nose gear and central and left main gear to land on.

[QUOTE=Stopper;46815935]It's very important which gear it is and whether it's stuck down or up. A landing with the nose gear stuck up has been done before and is relatively simple and straightforward. Some other combinations would be more challenging and certainly more dangerous to land. Of course, this seems to be happening under optimal conditions, so it will most likely be absolutely fine. Edit: and it is! Hopefully there'll be a video of the landing.[/QUOTE] [IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6CDIG3CMAAqLLC.jpg[/IMG]

Next time they'll have to call International Rescue

I wonder if we can find some of the tweets or facebook messages from the passangers.

[QUOTE=Stopper;46815935]It's very important which gear it is and whether it's stuck down or up. A landing with the nose gear stuck up has been done before and is relatively simple and straightforward. Some other combinations would be more challenging and certainly more dangerous to land. Of course, this seems to be happening under optimal conditions, so it will most likely be absolutely fine. Edit: and it is! Hopefully there'll be a video of the landing.[/QUOTE] Somehow I think it wouldn't be that big a deal if the landing gear were stuck in the down position

[QUOTE=dingusnin;46815993]I wonder if we can find some of the tweets or facebook messages from the passangers.[/QUOTE] Just keep an eye on CNN and they'll post them.

[QUOTE=Tone Float;46816069]Somehow I think it wouldn't be that big a deal if the landing gear were stuck in the down position[/QUOTE] [url]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_292[/url]

There are some tweets from one passenger on that Mirror link I posted. [URL="http://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-12-29/video-flight-vs43-has-makes-safe-landing-at-gatwick-airport-after-landing-gear-problem/"]Also a video of the landing from ITV here[/URL]

[QUOTE=Stopper;46816113][url]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_292[/url][/QUOTE] the nose gear was twisted sideways iirc

[QUOTE=Tone Float;46816069]Somehow I think it wouldn't be that big a deal if the landing gear were stuck in the down position[/QUOTE] If its stuck down but not locked (because say they tried to retract it and it failed) then that would be a massive problem.

[QUOTE=Stopper;46816113][url]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_292[/url][/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Stopper;46816113]en.m.wiki[/QUOTE] Well hello there, [I]Hitler![/I]

Saw a really low flying plane to the north of Uckfield today around mid day, doubt it was this one though

[video=youtube;JoWS_SHe4gU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoWS_SHe4gU[/video] Kudos to the pilots.

[QUOTE=Fayez;46817450][video=youtube;JoWS_SHe4gU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoWS_SHe4gU[/video] Kudos to the pilots.[/QUOTE] The engines didn't even scrape. That's impressive.

[QUOTE=Stopper;46816113][url]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JetBlue_Airways_Flight_292[/url][/QUOTE] What was left of the gear: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/kXcRJOD.jpg[/IMG]

That reminds me of how the concrete on runways gets progressively softer until it has an abundance of air in the concrete to allow it to break and slow down any planes that might be going too fast during landing

There's already a dramatic re-enactment of the incident on youtube. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOCmI72eRh4[/media]

[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;46818591]There's already a dramatic re-enactment of the incident on youtube. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOCmI72eRh4[/media][/QUOTE] Holy shit, I used to watch this all the time as a little kid. Was the coolest thing in the world next to samurai pizza cats and autobots.