Gatwick Airport Shut...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE56N2R920090724



Glad im not travelling that way today .....

Gatwick Airport has just re-opened .......

Flybe say it was a suspected technical fault....

Pretty scary for the folk onboard I would think!!!






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Passengers describe terrifying moment plane made emergency landing at Gatwick after cabin filled with smoke



By Arthur Martin and Ryan Kisiel
Last updated at 1:11 AM on 25th July 2009



A terrifed passenger on board a stricken plane which made an emergency landing at Gatwick today told of the 'hair-raising' moment the cabin filled up with smoke.

A Flybe flight heading from Paris to Cardiff was diverted to the West Sussex airport after the crew reported a technical fault.

The runway at Gatwick was closed and the airport's fire and ambulance services were deployed as the Dash 8 aircraft limped in.



Minutes after the jet landed, passengers were evacuated and fire crews were on hand, posted on Twitter




Passengers held hands and prayed as smoke gathered in the roof of the cabin 20 minutes before the forced landing.

Shayne Krige, who was flying with his wife Heike Brunner, 36, said the smoke 'started collecting along the roof and seemed to be getting thicker' as the plane descended.
'We held hands, looked at each other and said everything is going to be OK,' the 36-year-old lawyer said. 'It was a little bit hair-raising, everything goes through your mind - you are on high alert.

'There was a little moment of panic at first but we were both calm.'
Mr Krige, who is originally from South Africa but has lived in Paris for 10 years, said a steward came down the aisle offering passengers oxygen from a tank.

'The steward put on a mask and started walking down the aisle to find out where there might be a fire.

He went on to describe the 'great sense of relief' he felt when the plane touched down safely.

Flight BE1432 from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris had been due to land at Cardiff at 12.26pm. Instead, it made the emergency landing at Gatwick at 12.26pm.

All the 46 passengers and four crew members were evacuated and no one was injured.

The runway at Gatwick was closed for half an hour, causing delays of up to three hours to some flights.

Thousands of families embarking on their summer holidays were left frustrated as flights to popular destinations, including Majorca, Greece, Spain and Cyprus, were pushed back by at least an hour.

Planes destined for Ibiza and Tenerife were delayed by more than three hours. Passengers filled the departure lounges as officials attempted to clear the backlog
Thomas and Gill Edmonds, both 34, who live in Salisbury, Wiltshire, were heading for Dubai with their sons - Matthew, four, and William, two - when they were told their flight was delayed by three hours.

Mrs Edmonds, who works in a children’s hospital as a nurse, said: ‘This is a real pain and a horrible start to the holiday. We’ve been looking forward to this all year and the boys are already starting to become restless.

‘I hope the delays are not going to be longer than stated as it’s already eating into our holiday that we saved a lot of money to go on.’




The runway was closed immediately after the emergency landing


Eleven flights that were due to land shortly after the Flybe plane made an emergency landing were diverted to other airports across the country.


Gatwick is the world's busiest single-runway airport and Britain's second busiest airport after Heathrow, handling around 34 million passengers a year.

Flybe is Europe's largest regional low-cost airline, carrying 7.5million passengers a year between 13 countries.

However, it has a checkered track-record. Last year a captain on a Flybe plane announced: ‘Sorry, I’m not qualified to land the plane.’

He explained that he had not completed the low visibility training in that particular plane and as they were surrounded by fog he would have to turn round.

On another occasion, passengers braced themselves for disaster after a Flybe plane door blew open at 5,000ft in 2006.

And Flybe staff once refused to board the company's fleet of BAE 146 aircraft, saying poor air quality was putting them and their passengers at risk.

A Flybe spokesman said: 'The priority landing, at which emergency vehicles were deployed by the airport as a precautionary measure, followed a suspected technical fault.

'All 46 passengers disembarked safely and without incident and will be re-accommodated at the earliest possible opportunity. The safety of its passengers and crew is Flybe's number one priority.'

From Mail on-line