BA Crash Landing Incident at Heathrow Airport

Boeing777 Plane A British Airways Boeing 777 airliner has been involved in a landing crash at London Heathrow Airport.

Flight BA038, which was arriving from Beijing, landed short of the airport's southern runway just inside of the perimeter fence.

The British Airports Authority (BAA), the operator of Heathrow, commented that a "landing incident" had occurred.

The incident occurred at 12.42pm BST.

Emergency services responded to the incident quickly, with six ambulances being sent to the scene.

BA said 136 passengers were on board the aircraft. All passengers were evacuated via emergency exit shoots from the aircraft's doors. BBC News reported that 19 passengers were being treated for minor injuries.

Pictures of the plane showed the undercarriage was severely damaged. Extensive damage to the wings and to the right engine could also be seen.

The south runway is closed to arriving and departing flights, with aircraft being diverted to use the airport's northern runway.

Eyewitnesses Describe Crash

Speaking to BBC News, a number of eyewitnesses at Heathrow have graphically described how they saw the incident take place.

John Rowland, a taxi driver, said: "The plane's wheels collapsed, [the] doors were flown open. On its approach it took the runway too low, just missing the roof of my cab."

"It crashed into the runway, debris was flying everywhere, there was an enormous bang and it skidded sideways."

Nick Gray, another eyewitness, commented: "There were some sparks as the undercarriage or the bottom of the plane actually touched the runway - certainly a huge amount of smoke coming up from that. And then the plane did come to a halt reasonably quickly."