15 injured as passengers panic in emergency landing

A plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport, leaving 15 people in hospital.

Passengers suffered a range of injuries, including suspected fractures and cuts, as they escaped Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 using the emergency chutes.

Passenger Tom Aldridge said: “The people panicking as they were jumping off were throwing themselves out of the plane down the chute, and there was a big pile of bodies at the bottom where people were just landing on top of each other and there were quite a few injuries.”

There were reports of a fire on board as the Florida-bound plane came in to land two hours after it had taken off just before 11am.

Virgin Atlantic chief Steve Ridgway said the flight, carrying 301 adults and three children, was not far out of London when the technical alarms went off on the flight deck.

He said the captain made the decision to turn the aircraft back to Gatwick.

“We carried out an emergency evacuation, which was the right thing to do.”

West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said it was called at 12.21pm to reports of a “small fire on board an aircraft”, which had made a full emergency landing.

Flights in and out of Gatwick were suspended from the time of the emergency landing until around 2pm, with a number of incoming flights diverted, some to Stansted airport in Essex.