British Airways makes emergency landing due to Storm Ciara, travel disruption on

Monday, February 10, 2020

An emergency was declared by a British Airways flight from Geneva to Gatwick to land swiftly after diverting to Lyon in southern France.

After spending hours in flight the Airbus A320 operating BA2749 diverted to Lyon ‘squawked 7700’.

From the Swiss airport the plane took off almost three hours late and flew a holding pattern near Gatwick but it could not land safely. Later they took the decision to fly to Lyon which is just 61 miles from where it started.

The plane was running close to its fuel reserves which allows for half-an hour of flight after spending far longer than normal in flight.

To minimise risk declaring an emergency is a frequent procedure.

According to a passenger caught up in the chaos caused by Storm Ciara the British Airways operation at its main base, Heathrow was unravelling.

About 140 flights were pre-emptively cancelled by BA, which has now abruptly cancelled dozens more from its hub at Heathrow Terminal 5.

There are more than hundreds of passengers while many of them are long-haul flights.
At short notice Boston, Chicago , Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas. Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose flights were grounded along with many other flights on BA’s flagship route to New York JFK.

From Heathrow to Accra, Dubai and Lagos the long-haul links are also cancelled.

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