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Old May 27, 2016, 8:54 am
  #1  
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Delays at Heathrow?

Just sat on the BA1489 GLA-LHR and been told there has been an incident at Heathrow. Doors are closed. We have been told our take off time might be delayed by 2h 30min.

Anyone got any idea what's going on?
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Old May 27, 2016, 8:58 am
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Avianca flight declared an emergency but landed safely
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Old May 27, 2016, 8:59 am
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Never mind.

Seems it was Avianca AV120 that was squaking 7700 and was met by fire on arrival.

Can't be helped I suppose.
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Old May 27, 2016, 9:00 am
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An Avianca A330 declared an emergency (landed safely) and was met with emergency services which meant cover for the rest of the airport was temporarily reduced.
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Old May 27, 2016, 9:04 am
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I'm on the BA49, due to pushback at 1525 and we're now almost at the runway - so not too much of a delay for me at least. Flight deck said that all departures were halted (we were #4 for pushback once they resumed, but other aircraft were queuing on the taxiways)
At least it's not all of the south east's ATC crashing! There's a video on Twitter of the fire engines trailing behind it as it pulled off the runway
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Old May 27, 2016, 9:52 am
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Originally Posted by Genius1
An Avianca A330 declared an emergency (landed safely) and was met with emergency services which meant cover for the rest of the airport was temporarily reduced.
Actually this doesn't mean cover was reduced.

It used to be that once the fire service started 'deploying media' (that's foam and water, not old CDs and DVDs....) then fire cover was reduced. However, LHR can now cope with deploying media at one CAT10 (A380) incident and still have CAT10 cover for the rest of the airport.
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Old May 27, 2016, 9:56 am
  #7  
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Surely it wasn't the deploying of "foam and water" that led to reduced cover.

If a fire tender and its associated staff has been sent to a first potential incident, then they are out of place, and "occupied", even before they get to the point of deploying "foam and water" (if it ever turns out that is necessary).

If another incident occurs somewhere else on the airfield - the fact that they haven't started spraying on the first potential incident in no way allows them to magically (and simultaneously!) attend to a second potential incident!
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Old May 27, 2016, 9:57 am
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Originally Posted by Heathrow Tower
Actually this doesn't mean cover was reduced.

It used to be that once the fire service started 'deploying media' (that's foam and water, not old CDs and DVDs....) then fire cover was reduced. However, LHR can now cope with deploying media at one CAT10 (A380) incident and still have CAT10 cover for the rest of the airport.
Interesting, so in this case I guess it was just that the runway had to be checked after the aircraft vacated, and that flow was reduced to accommodate the aircraft incoming as an emergency?
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Old May 27, 2016, 10:29 am
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Without wishing to trivialise what could have been a very serious situation, but turned out OK, I can almost guarantee that on the Avianca plane there was an annoying 8 year old saying 'Wow! mummy, does this mean we're going to crash? Brilliant!!!'

Most other passengers are probably thinking that they'd happily throw that annoying brat to the wolves.

I know, because I have been that annoying brat. And, passim I'd probably been the only one listening on how to adopt the brace position.
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Old May 27, 2016, 2:15 pm
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Originally Posted by irishguy28
Surely it wasn't the deploying of "foam and water" that led to reduced cover.

If a fire tender and its associated staff has been sent to a first potential incident, then they are out of place, and "occupied", even before they get to the point of deploying "foam and water" (if it ever turns out that is necessary).

If another incident occurs somewhere else on the airfield - the fact that they haven't started spraying on the first potential incident in no way allows them to magically (and simultaneously!) attend to a second potential incident!
Yes, it was and is. Until the point the trigger is pulled on the appliance, that can be redeployed to another incident on the airport, under the control of fire chief. Provided there is a certain level of media able to respond to any part of the airfield within two minutes, then cover is there.

If it was merely the positioning of appliances on the airfield, then we'd have lost fire cover (and suffer the subsequent, effectual, closure of the airport) on average once a day for anywhere between 5 minutes and half an hour or more.
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