Virgin Atlantic Flight VS43 makes emergency landing in London en route to Las Vegas
A Virgin Atlantic jet bound for Las Vegas has made an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport after developing a problem with its landing gear.
Television images showed the Boeing 747 on the runway as fire trucks waited nearby.
The airline says the plane undertook "a non-standard landing procedure" because of "a technical issue with one of the landing gears."
The airport said the flight, VS43, took off at about 11:45 a.m. Monday. Flight-tracking websites show it circled off the coast of southwest England before turning back to Gatwick, south of London. It circled near the airport before landing some four hours after it took off.
Emergency services were on standby for the landing — standard procedure when a plane has to land with a technical problem.
The London landing several aviation scares in Canada:
- Air Canada Flight 850 from Calgary to Heathrow diverted to Toronto
- Smoke-filled Porter flight passengers 'used scarves to breathe'
- Toronto Porter flight forced to land en route to Washington
And meanwhile, the search is still on for a missing AirAsia jet: