LONDON – Earlier today, an Air Canada Boeing 777 declared emergency on arrival at London Heathrow due to a medical incident.
Flight 860, between Vancouver and London Heathrow, was operated by C-FITU, one of the airline’s 15-year-old Boeing 777-300ERs.
AC860 declared a general emergency, known as the squawk code of 7700, as it was approaching the coast of Northern Ireland.
As the aircraft was around 40-50 minutes from London Heathrow, the crew onboard opted to continue to London Heathrow instead of diverting elsewhere.
According to sources, the crew onboard Air Canada Flight 860 requested a direct routing to its destination of London Heathrow.
This would have enabled the crew to get into London as quickly as possible due to the nature of the medical emergency itself.
For long-haul flights in particular, this is a practice commonly adopted, especially as they were not far away from their destination anyway.
If the medical emergency turned more serious, then we would have seen the flight divert somewhere closer to where it originally declared the emergency from.
Upon arrival at the airport, the aircraft would have been met with paramedics and other emergency departments to ensure a quick transition of transport.
From there, the Air Canada crew will then proceed to turn around the aircraft and prepare for its return back to Vancouver.
It is unclear what the form of a medical emergency was, but AviationSource will not speculate and wish the affected passenger a speedy recovery.
AviationSource will approach Air Canada for a statement on the emergency.
