A Virgin Atlantic flight declared an emergency and diverted to Barcelona.
During the night, flight #VS450 from from Johannesburg to London Heathrow declared an emergency and diverted to Barcelona.
The Boeing 787-9 (reg. G-VAHH) was almost 10 hours into flight when crew declared a “pan pan” to ATC and requested a diversion.
The aircraft made an emergency landing on runway 02 shorty after 5:00am (local time) due to a to a technical issue (AIRLIVE’s exclusive info) which affected an engine. Low oil in engine #1 forced crew to reduce it then to shut it down.
Virgin Atlantic stated to AIRLIVE “We’d like to apologise for the delay and any inconvenience caused. We’re working at pace to ensure our customers can continue their journey to London as quickly as possible.”
At the time we write this article, the Dreamliner is still on the ground at Barcelona.
Some passengers complained they had no information how and when their flight will resume.
The rescue flight also went tech.
The airline sent an Airbus A330 to Barcelona which landed at 19.50. But the aircraft (reg. G-VINE) also suffered a technical issue.
Just bad luck, the aircraft performing rescue flight #VS1450 aborted takeoff and went back to the gate during the night .