Virgin Atlantic VS43 circles over Gatwick Airport as 'landing gear fails {now safely landed}

[Bosonic]

Source: Telegraph

A Virgin Atlantic plane is circling south east England after its right wing landing gear apparently failed to come down.

Flight VS43 has been captured on a flight radar circling the region after taking off from Gatwick Airport.

Virgin Atlantic confirmed there was a problem with one of the landing gears and said it was preparing to make an emergency landing.

It is believed pilots will remain in a holding pattern over the south east until enough fuel has been burned off before attempting to bring the Boeing 747 down.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/11316299/Virgin-Atlantic-VS43-circles-over-Gatwick-Airport-as-landing-gear-fails.html

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Virgin Atlantic Flight 43 (London to Las Vegas)

Departed London,
Monday, 29 December
Scheduled 11:20 Terminal Gate
11:28 S -

Arrives Las Vegas,
Monday, 29 December
Scheduled 14:05 Terminal Gate
13:51 3 -

[titaniumsalute]

1. Oh man that isn't good

The 747 is so big...hope they can manage it gracefully.

[itsrobert]

2. Sky News Coverage

http://news.sky.com/interactive/1345361/watch-sky-news-live

[Cooley Hurd]

3. It looks to have landed w/o incident per the Sky News feed

[itsrobert]

4. Plane lands safely

n/t

[Historic NY]

5. Looks like it made a safe landing....

[catbyte]

6. I just checked that Sky News link & the plane appears to have landed safely at Gatwick.

[madokie]

8. Those are old planes now

or they came into about when I quiet flying commercial. I never flew in one and made some pretty long flights where we'd have to make a stop on the way so a 747 would have been welcome. They seem to be tough planes

[ColesCountyDem]

11. I think the 747 is still in production.

Back when I still flew, I kept better track of such things.

[rickford66]

13. Two man crew replaced the three man crew.

More automation of the aircraft systems. Takes out some human error but may add distraction in some emergency cases. The bottom line is the airlines save money.

[madokie]

14. I think you're right about that

It seemed to be a good plane with a pretty good track record.

[ColesCountyDem]

15. It, the DC-3 and the 737 are the Timex watches of aircraft.

They take a licking, and keep on ticking--- errrm, flying.

[madokie]

16. DC-3 was the first plane I flew on

and it took almost as long to go from OKC to Dallas as it did in a 727 from Dallas to San Diego. It was within 15 minutes but I can't remember exactly which was the longest.

[ColesCountyDem]

17. It was also my first commercial experience.

I took Ozark from MWH to ORD, in 1963. We had 2 intermediate stops at BMI and SPI. It was about a two-hour trip, as I recall. Ozark had many 'milk runs', and that was one of them.

[titaniumsalute]

7. Yup landed OK

Phew.

[James48]

9. Relax-

It's just a landing gear partially down.

No reason to worry- they are designed to land without it being locked.

No single failure can jeopardize the safety of the plane.

FAA design standard....

14CFR 25.721; 25.483; and 25.1309

[HoosierCowboy]

10. Looks like...

....the landing gear door has struck the gear and is preventing the bogie from going up into the gear well and retracting. You're not going to Vegas from London with your airplanes "junk" hanging in the breeze.

[Just for Fun]

12. That's nothing... take a look at AVherald.com

and you'll see planes having gear issues

[Bosonic]

18. landing video