LATEST UPDATES:

 14 Feb 0700 Local:  London City Operations Officials advice they are returning to normal- flights subject to delays.  

 14 Feb 12:15 Local: Sources close to the situation have confirmed that one passenger was hospitalised overnight, and one was treated at a local hospital and quickly released.

BA8456 after nose gear collapses on landing at London City - Reuters

The Situation

This evening at approximately 1810 local, a BA CityJet AVRO RJ100 suffered what BA called a ”nose gear failure on landing at London City Airport.”  The flight was BA 8456 operating from Amsterdam to London City.

Current reports from BA public relations manager on duty, Sophie Greenyer, indicate that there were 67 passengers and 5 crew members involved in the incident.  Upon landing the front nose gear appears to have failed causing the aircraft to skid to an halt on the single runway at London City in with a shower of sparks.

Eyewitness Accounts

One airport worker described turning toward the single runways after he heard a “loud noise” and saw sparks flying from the bottom of the aircraft as is skid to a stop just over halfway down the useable runway.

Passenger Justin Fletcher who was on-board the flight from Amsterdam to London City has been quoted by The BBC as saying he heard “a loud thud” that was presumably the front of the aircraft hitting the runways after the gear failure.   He also advises that all passengers “evacuated immediately” and also that some suffered cuts and bruises.  

The Official BA Statement

The official statement from BA Media Relations advises the following:

“The nose-gear of a British Airways aircraft suffered a failure on landing at London City Airport this evening.

The BA8456 from Amsterdam had 67 passengers and four crew on-board; all of whom were evacuated.

As  a precaution the emergency slides were deployed and the passengers were evacuated down the slides onto the runway. Unfortunately one passenger sustained a minor injury and is currently on the way to hospital.

There was one other minor injury.
We don’t know the nature of the injury or how it was caused yet.

Our priority at the moment is to ensure all the passengers involved in the incident are well cared for by our ground staff”

London City Airport Closed as a result of the incident

London City Airport, which has a single runway, has reported the airport is now closed to both inbound and outbound traffic.  Airlines are making appropriate provisions to land at alternate London airports.

Note on Scene Photo 13 FEB:  We were contacted by the BBC today and advised that we had “taken or used” their photo of the scene.  We would like to clarify that we received the photo via MMS from a local airport contact w/ ramp access (when you have been in the airline business as long as we have you get to know people)  At the time we were not aware that he was sending it to the BBC- or others- and we made a choice to publish the photo.  We are now using a stock photo that we purchased from our supplier Reuters.