Planes Forced To Abort Landing At Heathrow As Storm Eunice Batters Airport
Planes have been forced to abort landings at Heathrow Airport as Storm Eunice continues to move in across the UK, bringing strong winds and extreme weather. You can see a British Airways plane make a failed attempt to set down in the video below. If you're scared of flying though, you have been warned.
Incidentally, if you want to see what's happening at Heathrow, Big Jet TV is bravely live-streaming the plane landings as we speak.
A number of planes were forced to have another go at landing after being blown from their course by the winds, which are expected to get up to over 90mph and possibly over 100mph in some places.
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A red warning is in place across London and the South East of England.
The rest of the UK – by and large – is under either an amber or a yellow warning.
A TAP Portugal flight on the way from Athens to London was just about to touch down onto the runway when it was forced to gain altitude once again and come back for a second try.
It was set to land at 11.05am, but eventually managed to get onto the ground at 11.26pm.
The main thing is that it managed to get onto the ground safely at all.
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Another flight, a British Airways flight from Nassau also took two attempts to get down, eventually getting on the runway 30 minutes after the scheduled time.
At 10.00am this morning, winds of 46mph were recorded at the airport, although that number is likely to have risen significantly as the storm sweeps in.
British Airways has – understandably – been forced to cancel a large number of flights.
In a statement, they wrote: "Due to the extreme weather conditions across the UK and resulting restrictions on the number of aircraft that can take-off and land each hour, we, like other airlines, are experiencing significant disruption.
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"We're operating as many flights as we can and putting on larger aircraft where possible.”
The winds brought by Storm Eunice could be the strongest in three decades, and speeds of 122mph have already been recorded at The Needles on the Isle of Wight - provisionally the strongest gust ever recording in England.
Millions of Britons have been warned to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel due to ‘significant danger to life’.
It is also expected that the storm will cause havoc for travel, as well as causing flooding in some coastal areas and leaving homes without power.
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All trains in Wales have already been called off because of the storm, and schools have been closed.
Bus and train services elsewhere are likely to be affected, as well as flights and ferry journeys.
Tom Wood