The investigation has begun into the British Airways Avro RJ100 plane which emergency landed at London City Airport after it lost its front wheels on landing.

The crash was the second such incident at London City airport in ten days, following the closure of the runway on 5 February because of a bent nose wheel. Smoke filled the cabin as the BA flight 8456 was involved in a “hard landing” on Friday evening after arriving from Amsterdam.

By the time emergency services arrived, all 67 passengers and five crew members on board the plane were safely evacuated by using the aircraft’s inflatable slides. One person was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The Avro RJ-100 carries up to 100 passengers. It has been manufactured by BAE Systems since 1992 and there are around 152 are in service.

An Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) spokesman said that an investigation had already started to find out the cause of the crash.

A British Airways spokesman said: “The nose wheel of a British Airways aircraft suffered a failure on landing at London City Airport.

“The BA 8456 from Amsterdam had 67 passengers and four crew on board. As a precaution the emergency slides were deployed and the passengers were evacuated down the slides onto the runway.”

The airport was closed and 11 flights diverted to nearby airports while the situation was brought under control. Fire crews and air accident investigators were called to the scene. A spokeswoman for the airport said it had reopened as normal this morning and that the stricken aircraft would remain in a secure area at the small airport until it could be repaired or removed.
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