A Royal Air Force C-17 transport aircraft declared an emergency over Shrewsbury 20 minutes after departing RAF Brize Norton.
UPDATE: The aircraft has now landed.
An RAF spokesman said: “A RAF C-17 Globemaster from RAF Brize Norton on a routine training mission suffered a technical issue requiring it to land as soon as practicable, the aircraft completed an uneventful precautionary recovery to Birmingham Airport where the aircraft landed safely.”
The Open Source Intelligence Twitter account SkyWatcher Intel is following this, if you don’t follow them then I’d suggest you go do that now.
https://twitter.com/skywatcherintel/status/1360188966616653825
The aircraft is now heading to Birmingham International Airport.
https://twitter.com/skywatcherintel/status/1360189574757113856
The aircraft has now landed.
https://twitter.com/skywatcherintel/status/1360191756353044480
What is the significance of “Squawking 7700”?
Captain Hoke is a Boeing 757/767 captain for a package express airline and also runs the website AeroSavvy, he had this to say.
“Declaring an emergency means the crew determines they have an ‘urgency’ or ‘distress’ situation. “Urgency” means the crew is concerned about the safety of the flight and needs timely (but not necessarily immediate) assistance. A ‘distress’ condition means that the flight is in serious and/or imminent danger and requires immediate assistance”.
There seems to be one of these every other day now! What on earth is going on?
I suppose people are noticing it more because they are sat at home more. Could be anything from a simple warning light to something more noticeable that needs more attention
Agreed. Hard to get any information on whether this spate of events is statistically unusual, but the number of them certainly warrants a deeper look.
It could just be that UKDJ is picking them up and reporting them more often… Just a thought.
Cheers CR
That’s exactly what it is.
It’s perfectly normal, aircraft have technical problems all the time, it’s just that Sombody has decided to report these events. I worked at RAF Cottesmore with the Harrier GR9. We had precautionary state 2 landings maybe 3 or 4 times a month. Perfectly normal operations.
Does it happen with Easy jet?
Almost certainly ? but the passengers would never know, unless the aircraft had to dump fuel first before landing, and you end up in Luton instead of Majorca ?
Why not divert to RAF Shawbury a few flying minutes from Shrewsbury?
It can land at shawbury but can’t take off as runway isn’t long enough and they don’t have enough room to house it
with the current levels of flying, Birmingham international is probably quieter than Shawbury!
Hi maurice10,
Good question. I have just done some quick checking online and the runway, although smaller than RAF Brize Norton’s runways, seems to be big enough for the C-17. The only thing I noted is that the runway is a mix of asphelt and concrete which may indicate issues with the strength of the surface. Also, it is now a helicopter training base so again perhaps there could be concerns with the runway.
Another, thought that occurs is that Birmingham may have a bigger emergency vehicle fleet more suited to dealing with heavies.
After that I’m at a loss.
Cheers CR
It will have gone to Birmingham because of the airfield category. Birmingham has fire crews large enough to deal with a large airframe like the C17, Shawbury is a cat 3 airfield, so is only equipped to deal with helicopters or fast jets with 2 crew.
Birmingham has a higher airfield category than Shawbury. Basically they have larger fire crews to deal with a C17 sized aircraft. Shawbury is a cat 3 airfield, so it’s fire crews are smaller in number to deal with a helicopter or a 2 crew fast jet.
Smoke in the cabin
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/local-news/huge-raf-globemaster-aircraft-makes-19826257
Someone having a crafty spliff?
The coffee machine in the back fell over, latte coffee all over the Belgian buns, mayday mayday!
Don’t be salty because you had to jump out before refreshments were served ?
I know….never quite made refreshments.
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Why is it deemed necessary to report this?
Why not?