British Airways flight loses wheel during take-off

Credit: Flightradar24.com

A British Airways plane lost a wheel in mid-air while taking off from Las Vegas.

The Airbus, which was flying to Heathrow, malfunctioned shortly after leaving the runway on Monday night.

Video footage shared by Flightradar, a flight-tracking website, showed sparks coming from the right-hand main landing gear as the aircraft took off.

Moments later, the wheel detached in mid-air as it was being retracted, falling to the ground.

Flight BA274 continued on to London, where it made a “safe and uneventful” landing after more than nine hours in the air, Flightradar said.

The separation of the right rear wheel from the A350-1000 aircraft was also captured on the flight tracker’s automated live stream at Las Vegas airport.

British Airways confirmed that no one was injured, either on board the aircraft or on the ground in Las Vegas.

The incident was the latest to draw attention to the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus, which has faced increased scrutiny over a series of technical and quality-related problems affecting parts of its fleet.

Last month, Airbus said an unspecified number of its aircraft would undergo inspections following the discovery of a “supplier quality issue” involving metal panels used on some planes.

It said as many as 600 planes could be checked, although not all were expected to require repairs.

According to the manufacturer, the issue was traced to panels located at the front of the aircraft that were found, in some cases, to be either too thick or too thin. Airbus stressed that the defect did not pose a flight safety risk.

The number of jets that needed inspections for quality problems include 168 planes that were already in service.

Days before, more than 6,000 Airbus aircraft had been grounded globally for emergency software updates in a major industry disruption. The problem was linked to a vulnerability in flight-control computers that could be triggered by intense solar radiation.

The problem was discovered after an aircraft flying between the US and Mexico experienced a sudden loss of altitude, injuring 15 passengers.

That grounding led to widespread cancellations and delays during one of the busiest travel periods of the year, coinciding with Thanksgiving in the US. Airbus shares dropped by more than 6.5 per cent in the days following the incident.