BA jet makes emergency landing
A jumbo jet pilot was forced to make an emergency landing after one of the plane's four engines failed and it started running low on fuel, it emerged today.
British Airways flight 268 was met by four fire engines and 30 firefighters on Manchester Airport's runway 2 after the captain made a mayday call to the control tower yesterday afternoon, a BA spokeswoman said.
The 747 plane, which had 351 passengers on board, had been travelling from Los Angeles to London Heathrow.
The pilot noticed something was wrong just an hour after take-off, when there was a power surge through engine number two on the port side of the aircraft.
He switched off the broken device and continued to fly over the US, calculating that the plane could make it safely to its UK destination.
But while the aircraft was travelling over the Atlantic Ocean the pilot experienced some unexpected headwind, which depleted its fuel reserves further.
The captain decided not to risk wasting more fuel by flying to Heathrow and made a mayday call asking to land at Manchester.
It landed at around 4pm on Sunday and the passengers were later transferred to Heathrow on alternative flights.
A spokeswoman for BA confirmed that the pilot had made a "diversion landing" but stressed that he was following normal procedure.
She said: "He was getting low on fuel so he took the standard precaution and he declared Mayday because it gave him a priority landing at Manchester.
"If it had been critical he would have been diverted into a US airport. The plane wasn't flying on fumes."
A spokesman for Manchester Fire Service said four fire engines, an emergency salvage tender containing cutting equipment, an aerial ladder platform and a foam tanker had responded to the incident.
He said: "We have a pre-determined attendance. This is the standard procedure for aircraft coming in under these circumstances.
"We stood by until the all clear had been given and then we went. It is not uncommon for us to attend the airport."
A spokeswoman for Manchester Airport confirmed that staff had been put on a "full emergency alert".
