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A plane skidded down the runway to make an emergency landing at Birmingham Airport today forcing all flights to remain grounded for hours.
The small aircraft, a Beech B200 Super King Air plane, had been headed for Belfast before it was forced to make an impromptu landing on the city runway at 1.40pm.
An observer, who wished to remain anonymous, filmed the plane – forced to descend without fully extending its landing gear – as it made the emergency stop.
He said: ‘It took off from Birmingham, and as it was flying over Tamworth, it declared an emergency.
‘The plane turned around to come back to Birmingham – when it came to land, it went for a go-around [an aborted landing]. I saw all its landing gears out.’
The person who filmed the footage said the plane then attempted a ‘long’ go-around – which means the plane wasn’t able to land because it hadn’t been given clearance, so it stayed in the air.
‘A few aircrafts landed in the meantime,’ he added.
‘Then about 15 minutes later, the Super King plane came into view. I could hear a loud noise which I initially thought was the brakes seizing. I realised, after zooming in, the plane was dragging along.’
Three people received medical attention after the emergency landing, but just one person has been treated for minor injuries.
All departures and arrivals at the hub were halted leaving thousands of passengers impacted by the disruption this afternoon – but flights resumed at 8pm, Birmingham Airport confirmed.
Some arriving flights were diverted, with services from Ryanair and Jet2 sent to Stansted, Manchester and East Midlands airports while Birmingham remained shut.
West Midlands Ambulance Service has since discharged all those onboard the aircraft.
Birmingham Airport had said in a statement posted at 4.16pm that people due to travel later today should check the status of their flight before coming to the airport.
Families at the airport lamented the delays saying they had ‘not been told anything’ and ‘found out about the incident on Facebook’.
Faye, who had been travelling with her partner and four children, were due to fly to Antalya in Turkey with Jet2 at 2.55pm.
But it later emerged her holiday had been ‘cancelled’ as she received a text message saying there would be a full refund in four to five days.
The family were forced to wait with 400 other people to collect their baggage, leaving her children ‘sobbing and crying’.
‘We are stuck here waiting for our baggage and it’s boiling hot… and now our kids aren’t going to have a holiday,’ Faye said.
Earlier, she told the BBC it was ‘so hot and busy’ in the airport, adding her family had been given £10 per person for food and drinks by the airline.
Faye said: ‘We’ve not been told anything. We found out about the incident on Facebook.
‘Someone I met has already had their flight to Greece cancelled and a friend of mine had her flight rescheduled for later tonight.
‘I’m a bag of nerves, I hate flying.’
The family said at the time they were playing games to keep themselves occupied.
James Conibere and his family of eight had been waiting at Wetherspoons for updates on their flight as they had been hoping to travel to Malta as a retirement gift for Mr Conibere’s mother-in-law.
The family arrived at the airport at 1pm, just before the runway incident.
Mr Conibere told the BBC: ‘Lots of people are getting agitated and angry by the lack of information from the airport.
‘We have received a food voucher from Ryanair. We’re relying on news outlets for information.’
One X user posted photos of the stricken plane’s tail sitting on the runway, writing: ‘An aircraft on the runway at Birmingham airport seems to have emergency crews around it.’ They added: ‘No flights taking off till 6.00. Not a great start to the holiday.’
Another wrote: ‘Son and family have been diverted to Stansted. Just landed but not given any more info yet.’
And a third said: ‘How can a plane that small and on the grass delay us for three hours? Any explanation?’
Emergency crews headed to the runway to assist those on board the plane, which is operated by Belfast-based private charter operator Woodgate Aviation.
The plane, registered G-NIAA, was built in 1981 and is owned by a firm called Blue Sky Investments on the Isle of Man, according to Civil Aviation Authority records.
It left Birmingham at 1.11pm but soon made a turn and several loops before landing back at the same airport at 1.58pm, according to tracking website FlightRadar 24.
The Beech B200 Super King Air is the same aircraft model involved in the fireball crash at London Southend Airport on July 13 which killed four people onboard.
A Birmingham Airport spokesman said at 2.40pm today: ‘Following an aircraft incident, the runway is temporarily closed. We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause.
‘We will keep passengers already at the airport informed, and those due to travel later today are advised to check the status of their flight before coming to the airport. We will continue to issue updates when we can.’
A further update from the airport at 4.15pm said: ‘Following an aircraft incident earlier today, the runway is still temporarily closed. All persons on board the aircraft have been discharged by West Midlands Ambulance Service.
‘During this temporary closure we apologise for the inconvenience this is causing. Passengers on site remain informed and those due to travel later today and advised to check the status of their flight before coming to the airport.
‘At this time, both check-in and security are temporarily closed. We will continue to issue updates when we can.’
A West Midlands Police spokesman said: ‘We are at Birmingham Airport this afternoon after a small aircraft was involved in an emergency landing at around 1.40pm.
‘Officers are among the emergency crews at the scene and one person has been reported to have minor injuries.
‘The Civil Aviation Authority has been informed and the airport has suspended operations as an investigation is carried out.’
West Midlands Ambulance Service said in a statement: ‘We were called at 1.45pm to an incident involving a light aircraft at Birmingham Airport. Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) paramedics and three paramedic officers were sent to the scene.
‘Upon arrival we found three patients from the aircraft, all of whom were assessed and discharged at the scene.’
The airport’s website also appeared to have gone down, with users greeted by a message saying: ‘Bad gateway. Error code 502.’
Birmingham is the UK’s seventh-largest airport in the UK and handled about 13million passengers last year, with over 130 direct routes offered by 30 airlines.
The disruption comes during the peak summer holiday season, and follows chaos at Heathrow yesterday when the airport was forced to shut a road tunnel connecting to Terminals 2 and 3.
Roads leading up to the airport were gridlocked due to the closure, with some desperate flyers sprinting down the motorway with their luggage to catch their flights.
It was the second incident to cause delays at the airport in just one week after an IT issue with a National Air Traffic Services (NATS) centre last Wednesday led to more than 150 flight cancellations across the country.
The Southend Airport tragedy on July 13 saw a Beech B200 Super King Air on a medical flight crash within the airport boundary shortly after take-off that afternoon.
Captain Danny Marko Franken, 53, and First Officer Floris Christiaan Rhee, 24, were piloting the plane chartered for a patient to be transported for treatment in the UK.
The two pilots were on board with a female nurse and a male doctor, with the Zeusch Aviation plane bound for its Netherlands base after dropping off a patient.
The nurse was named as Maria Fernanda Rojaz Ortiz, 31, a German national originally from Chile, and the doctor was German national Dr Matthias Eyl, 46.
Footage showed fire and black smoke billowing into the air from the crash site, while witnesses described seeing the jet ‘corkscrew’ before erupting into a ball of flames.
An investigation is underway into the cause of the crash in Essex involving the Super King Air, which is often used for mapping and for medivac journeys.
The plane had completed two trips that day, one from Athens in Greece to Pula in Croatia and then from Pula to Southend, landing in the UK at 2.51pm.
The crash happened at 3.48pm and led to all flights in and out of the airport, which is used by easyJet for many of its holiday routes, being suspended.
The airport was closed while an early investigation was carried out but it partially reopened three days later and resumed normal operations from July 17.
