British Airways plane makes emergency landing at Heathrow

A British Airways plane made an emergency landing at London’s Heathrow airport on Friday after a “technical fault”, forcing officials to close both runways.

Emergency slides were used to evacuate the plane’s 75 passengers while amateur footage shot near the flight path showed smoke spewing from the Airbus A319’s right engine shortly after takeoff.

The northern runway at Heathrow – one of the world’s busiest airports – remained closed following the incident at around 9.00am, a Heathrow spokeswoman said, but the southern runway was later reopened.

“BA762 Heathrow to Oslo service returned back to Heathrow shortly after takeoff due to a technical fault,” a British Airways spokesman said.

“The aircraft landed safely and emergency slides were deployed.”