A British Airways Airbus A350-1000 flying from Las Vegas to Heathrow declared an in-flight emergency on Tuesday 18 August, prompting a full fire and ambulance response on landing, though the aircraft touched down safely and airport operations were not disrupted.
Flight BA274, registration G-XWBL, left Las Vegas's Harry Reid International Airport and was on its final descent into Heathrow when the crew squawked 7700, the international transponder code used to alert air traffic control to a general emergency. The alert followed a suspected hydraulic system issue on the twin-aisle jet, according to aviation news site AIRLIVE, which tracked the flight in real time as the story developed.
Air traffic control gave BA274 priority into Heathrow's arrival sequence, guiding it onto runway 27R. Heathrow's airport rescue and firefighting service and local ambulance crews were placed on standby ahead of the scheduled touchdown at around 3:11pm BST.
The aircraft landed without incident, vacated the runway and was met by fire trucks, which escorted it away from the runway before it parked on a remote stand at Terminal 5 rather than a normal gate, a standard precaution after any declared emergency. Travel And Tour World, which also tracked the incident, reported that the precautionary response reflected the redundancy built into modern aircraft systems such as the A350's hydraulics, and that the emergency vehicle presence did not indicate an actual fire or immediate danger to passengers.