The pilot of a British Airways flight from London to Chicago is being lauded as a hero after safely making an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport on Saturday.
British Airways Flight 295 left at its scheduled departure time of 12:15 p.m. and flew for over two hours across the Atlantic Ocean toward Chicago when the pilot returned to Heathrow Airport in London after the landing gear malfunctioned, the Daily Mail reported. A Youtube video captued by "Mraviationguy" showing the landing in its entirety can be seen below:
"As a precaution, one of our flights returned to Heathrow due to a technical issue," the airline said in a statement. "After a short delay, while our engineers finished their checks, we moved the aircraft from the runway and will begin transfering customers to a replacement aircraft."
Captain just explained that we have landed on three sets of wheels rather than 5 we are now stuck on the runway as the plane is stuck — bendepear (@bendepear) January 30, 2016
Being to told to leave the plane from the back to keep the balance and stop it from tipping as some wheels still aren't down #BA295 — Martin Robinson (@MartinJRobinson) January 30, 2016
U.S. & World
After the flight, several people took to social media to thank the pilot, lauding him as a hero.
The hugest kisses and hugs to the @British_Airways pilot who just landed the plane my husband was on when the landing gear failed. #thankyou — Muriel Gray (@ArtyBagger) January 30, 2016
@British_Airways Fist Bump to the BA pilots & crew for landing #BA295 with ease, grace & safety in mind! #trainingpaysoff — M. Valdovino (@KaliKidd415) January 30, 2016
Well done to all those involved both onboard and on the ground for the safe landing of @British_Airways #BA295 @HeathrowAirport #greatjob — Andrew S-W (@Andrew_SW) January 30, 2016
Once passengers had arrived at O'Hare, they were pleased to be finished with the ordeal, and feeling thankful for the pilot's quick thinking.
"The airline crew was awesome," said Paul Baker. "t was clear there was a problem when they decided to take us back to the airport."
Baker added that the pilot gave "minimal information to keep us calm, but to hear we landed on three wheels out of five was interesting to say the least."
"Everyone was calm about it; the captain was calm. He did not go into a lot of detail understandably, until the plane landed when he described exactly what had happened," said Tom Gawlik.
"Having no knowledge is probably a good thing," he continued, as people were "anxious to get home."
Heathrow Airport tweeted that as of 1:30 p.m. Saturday, all operations were running normally.
