Nine passenger planes declared fuel emergencies after a runway shutdown triggered cascading travel disruption. The chaos unfolded when Flight BA2673, a British Airways Airbus A320 arriving at London Gatwick from Palma de Mallorca, suffered a nose gear malfunction after touchdown and was left immobilized on the airport’s sole operational runway. With nowhere to land, inbound flights continued circling until many were forced to divert because of dwindling fuel. A total of 14 aircraft abandoned their approaches, rerouting to airports including Luton, Stansted, Birmingham, Bristol, and Heathrow, which accepted one late-night arrival despite its normal curfew. Nine of those flights transmitted the emergency 7700 code to signal they needed priority handling. A fuel emergency does not mean an aircraft is about to run out of fuel, but indicates it can no longer remain in a holding pattern and requires priority landing. Most flights later returned to Gatwick after the runway reopened. The disabled British Airways jet remained grounded on Wednesday and was pulled from its next scheduled flight.
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