The world of air travel tends to be rather safe when compared to the numerous other options available in the world today, but sometimes things do go wrong in that market, too. Recently, three airplanes were forced to make emergency landings within a short 24-hour span, Travel Pulse reports.
The first, a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Las Vegas, was forced to turn back to its departure city and make an emergency landing almost immediately due to faulty landing gear. VA Flight 43 circled over the UK a few times early in the morning hours before the pilots aboard realized their right landing gear was in-operational. The pilots, both experienced in their own right, were able to safely land the plane without any injuries or further problems.
The emergency landings don’t stop there, though, as a Bombardier Dash 8, loaded with 74 passengers in total, was heading from Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport to Sudbury, was forced to land at Pearson International. The crew aboard this particular plane found themselves surrounded by smoke within the inside of the aircraft. One of the two engines on the passenger plane had been shut down as standard procedure in the event of a fire, and the aircraft was landed safely at the larger airport. Again, thanks to the experience of the team aboard, no injuries were reported on this emergency landing.
Lastly, over the weekend, Porter’s Flight 723 from Toronto to Washington, complete with 66 passengers aboard, made an emergency stop at Willamsport, Pennsylvania following smoke appearing within the cabin of the aircraft. Passengers were able to board another plane to Washington shortly after landing, though.
There really is no reason to why this all happened within such a short time span – 24-hours – and as such, it can only be attributed to random acts. Thankfully, not a single person was injured during any of the emergency landings, as none were overly major or disastrous. Should either of the aircraft have stayed in the air, however, things could have taken a turn for the worse – especially in light of the ongoing investigation with the missing AirAsia plane.
