Airport Operations
© 2018 Richard Moxon, Center for Air Transport Management, Cornfield University
1. Incident Background
It is 12:45 on January 17th 2008. You are the terminal duty manager at Heathrow Airport’s
Terminal 2 (T2) working a 12 hour 06:00 – 18:00 operational shift. You have just received
notification of an aircraft accident at the airport. A British Airways Boeing 777-236ER
registration G-YMMM has touched down some 330m short of the paved surface of runway
27L at 12:42. The aircraft has come to a rest on the paved surface of the undershoot area of
runway 27L. See Figure 1.
Figure 1 : G-YMMM at Runway 27L (‘southern runway’) undershoot shortly after the
accident.
Source : UK Department for Transport
Cabin crew supervised the emergency evacuation of the cabin and all occupants left the
aircraft although it is understood that some passengers and crew are injured. The airport’s
aircraft accident (on airport) emergency plan was instigated following the Heathrow Tower
crash message sent at 12:42:22 (DfT, 20101
).
1 Report on the accident to Boeing 777-236ER, G-YMMM, at London Heathrow on 17th January 2008, UK
Department for Transport (Air Accident Investigations Branch), 2010.