Flight crash lands at Heathrow
Seventeen passengers are being treated for minor injuries, reports say.
Fire engines smothered the Boeing 777 in foam after it landed with its wings extensively damaged and its undercarriage wrecked.
I won the lottery today, Fernando Prado, one of the 136 passengers on board told the BBC after being evacuated by emergency chute.
Another passenger, Steve Bell, said: It turned about 90 degrees on landing. Its wheels were not down. Within minutes fire crews arrived and evacuated all the passengers.
An airport spokeswoman said: We can confirm that BA Flight 38 arriving from Beijing made an emergency landing at 12.42. Passengers have been evacuated.
The south runway is closed but the north runway is still operating, the spokeswoman added.
Airport authorities warned that some flights would inevitably now be delayed or cancelled. Normally about 40 flights an hour touch down at Heathrow with a further 40 taking off.
British Airways said they had no comment to offer on why the plane came down.
A spokeswoman for police headquarters at Londons Scotland Yard said There is nothing to suggest it is terror-related.
Among the planes delayed was the flight being taken by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on an official trip to India and China.
The pilot on board Browns plane announced that an aircraft had been involved in a fairly significant incident on landing.
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Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 6:06 pm under