Virgin Atlantic flight landing sparks major emergency incident at Edinburgh Airport
A VIRGIN Atlantic flight sparked a major emergency response at Edinburgh Airport this morning.
The plane was due to land in the capital at 11am from Orlando.
But it reported a loss of pressure front nose gear on departure from the Florida city and would require assistance on landing.
A number of ambulance and fire crews were spotted waiting at the scene.
It's understood the drama was sparked by a flat front landing tyre - leading to fears the runway impact could smash through to the wheel metal.
As it approached Edinburgh Airport, the Virgin flight was the most-tracked plane on FlightRader24 with more than 3000 people watching the landing worldwide.
The flight has now landed on the runway and has been surrounded by emergency vehicles.
It touched down on the tarmac at 11.20am.
The incident had a knock-on effect with departures, with multiple flights due to take off between 10am and 11am delayed.
And a number of arriving flights have been forced into a holding pattern, circling near the airport until the runway is cleared.
The flight later slowly left the runway shortly before 12pm, allowing other aircraft to begin to take-off and land.
The runway is now fully reopen.
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said: "As a precautionary measure we have requested engineers meet our flight the VS226 travelling from Orlando to Edinburgh upon landing due to low nose gear tyre pressure.
"The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and the aircraft had landed as normal"
An Edinburgh Airport spokesman said: "Our teams were made aware of an issue with the inbound Virgin Atlantic flight and as a precaution stood up response procedures as is standard practice.
"The flight has landed and was met by emergency response vehicles. It has since exited the runway and operations have resumed."
