A British Airways plane’s nose collapsed on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport today seriously injuring a crew member – after an engineer ‘failed to lock out the landing gear properly’, Daily Mail reports.
Shocking photos show the Dreamliner 787-8 with its nose on the ground and broken landing gear while a stair car stands by.
Airport emergency crews rushed to the scene but the extent of the damage to the plane remains unknown. Medics assessed two staff with one in need of hospital treatment.
The incident happened while the Boeing-made plane – a passenger aircraft converted for cargo transport – was being loaded for a morning flight to Frankfurt, Germany, having flown in from Moscow two days ago.
A source told MailOnline that the accident occurred because of an engineer ‘not locking out the nose gear properly’; meaning the vital piece of landing equipment could have folded itself up inside the plane.
The source added flight crew was on board when it collapsed and that there were concerns among the ground staff of a possible safety issue – which could lead to other 787s being grounded while inspections are carried out.
British Airways however said flights were continuing as normal and that the aircraft was only transporting freight and so had no passengers on board.
It comes amid turbulence for BA after it announced a cut of up to 12,000 jobs during the pandemic and for Boeing who suffered huge problems grounding their 737 MAX airliner fleet after two crashes killed 346 people.
A spokesman for the company said: ‘A freighter aircraft has been damaged while stationary on the stand. As a freighter the only aircraft there were no passengers on board.
“Safety is always our highest priority and we are investigating the matter.”
A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: ‘We were called at 8:05 am today to reports of an incident at Heathrow Airport.
“We sent a number of resources to the scene including our hazardous area response team (HART), ambulance crews, a medic on a bicycle, and an incident response officer. Our medics assessed two people at the scene. After an assessment, we took one person to a hospital.”
It appears only the front landing gear, underneath the pilot’s cabin, has collapsed, leaving the plane at a downwards angle.
AerohubNews tweeted: ‘An unidentified (at present) British Airways Boeing 787 has suffered a nose gear collapse at London Heathrow Airport this morning.
“Extent of the damage is currently unknown, further details will be reported once available.”
Callum Jones, a ramp agent at Manchester airport, said there are many reasons why a nose of a plane could collapse and that this will have to be determined by engineers.
He told Metro.co.uk: ‘I didn’t witness the collapse but I work on the ramp at Manchester. There are no injuries apparently. They are just lucky nobody was under the nose when it collapsed and no pushback tug was attached either else it could have been a lot worse.
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