USA: VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRCRAFT FINALLY ARRIVES IN NEW YORK AFTER MAKING EMERGENCY LANDING IN IQALUIT WHEN PASSENGER APPARENTLY SUFFERED HEART ATTACK AND THEN BEING DELAYED BY DAMAGE TO PLANE

Record ID: 573476

  • Title: USA: VIRGIN ATLANTIC AIRCRAFT FINALLY ARRIVES IN NEW YORK AFTER MAKING EMERGENCY LANDING IN IQALUIT WHEN PASSENGER APPARENTLY SUFFERED HEART ATTACK AND THEN BEING DELAYED BY DAMAGE TO PLANE
  • Date: 1st June 1996
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JUNE 1, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV EXTERIOR KENNEDY AIRPORT, AIRPORT BUS (2 SHOTS) 0.14 2. SLV INTERIOR TERMINAL WITH PASSENGERS (2 SHOTS) 0.28 3. SV PASSENGERS GREETED BY RELATIVES 0.36 4. MCU MAN SAYS: SICK MAN WAS SWEATY AND DROUSY, WASN'T FEELING WELL. HE HAD HEART ATTACK IN THE PAST. WE THOUGHT HE WAS HAVING ANOTHER ATTACK (ENGLISH) 0.57 5. MCU MAN SAYS THE LOCAL PEOPLE WERE NICE AND BROUGHT US FOOD AND TOOK US ON A TOUR OF AN ISLAND WE'LL NEVER SEE AGAIN (ENGLISH) 1.08 6. MCU THIRD MAN SAYS THEY LEFT US IN THE PLANE FOR ABOUT HALF AN HOUR WITH PETROL ON RUNWAY. FOUR HUNDRED PEOPLE COULD HAVE DIED. THEY DID NOTHING. DIDN'T TELL US WHAT WAS HAPPENING (ENGLISH) 1.30 7. SV PASSENGERS EXIT TERMINAL AND ENTER BUSES (2 SHOTS) 1.45 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 16th June 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA5NGTZ16SCQBACLUHTAJAANPXV
  • Story Text: INTRO: A Virgin Atlantic aircraft carrying nearly 400 people, including a duke and a rock band, has narrowly escaped disaster after being forced to land at an Arctic outpost. After landing the plane clipped a fuel pump sending the flammable aviation fuel across the tarmac.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------- The plane was forced to land because a passenger suffered an apparent heart attack, officials and witnesses said on Saturday (June 1).

    The plane was heading from London to Los Angeles on Friday night when the passenger was stricken and the pilot of the Boeing 747 decided to land at the tiny outpost of Iqaluit on Canada's northeast fringe to get the man medical treatment, a government spokeswoman said.

    As the jet landed on the runway, a wing slammed into a refuelling pipe, damaging the craft. One passenger said after the plane hit the pipe he smelled jet fuel and was afraid it would catch on fire.

    "Almost immediately the fire trucks were on the scene and they foamed the wing," the passenger, Paul Colella of Scottsdale, Arizona, said.

    A Delta Air Lines plane picked up the 368 passengers and a crew of 25 during the night and brought them to New York on Saturday morning, said Richard D'Ambrosio, a Virgin Atlantic spokesman.

    In New York, Ben Willmot, a London-based journalist for the New Musical Express, said Prince Michael, the Duke of Kent, and the rock band Take That were on the plane.

    Willmot said on arrival at Iqaluit the prince boarded another plane that was waiting for him at the airstrip and took off.

    The band went on to New York with the rest of the passengers.

    Some of exhaused passengers opted to stay the night and others were making connecting flights to Los Angeles.

    The passenger whose illness prompted the emergency landing stayed in Iqaluit and was in stable condition. Doctors have not confirmed that he suffered a heart attack, a hospital official said. His wife remained at the hospital with him, the official said.

    Before their departure from Iqaluit, a remote village of about 4,000 largely populated by Inuit (Eskimo), the travellers were housed at a college and military installation as well as private homes.

    Other passengers waiting for flights in New York complained of lost luggage and one, Richard Kitson, a salesman from London, said, "No one knew what was going on. It was pandemonium."
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