‘Seconds from disaster’: UK plane with 180 onboard had a close shave moments before landing in London

Sources quoted by The Sun described the episode as “The most serious ‘near miss’ in the UK in years”. A British Airways flight carrying around 180 passengers was reportedly “seconds from disaster” after stalling during its approach to London Heathrow, prompting an investigation into what has been described as one of the UK’s most serious aviation near misses in years.According to report by the Daily Mail, the incident took place on July 6 aboard Flight BA919 from Düsseldorf as the Airbus A320 was descending over Canary Wharf in east London. The aircraft was flying at around 4,000ft when one of its air data systems, which provides critical information such as airspeed, reportedly failed.The system failure is understood to have triggered a stall — a dangerous condition in which an aircraft’s wings lose enough lift to maintain controlled flight. Unlike a car engine stalling, an aircraft stall does not mean the engines stop. Instead, the aircraft risks rapidly losing altitude if corrective action is not taken.Reports said the first officer initially attempted to deal with the situation, but the captain was forced to physically intervene in the cockpit after those efforts failed. Sources quoted by The Sun described the episode as “The most serious ‘near miss’ in the UK in years”.A source told The Sun: “To recover from this position is difficult, especially so low to the ground. It is unheard of for a captain to physically intervene in the cockpit.”Senior aviation figures reportedly told the newspaper the aircraft had come close to a “hull loss” — an aviation term used when an aircraft is destroyed or suffers damage beyond economical repair.According to the reports, the incident has been classified as “Loss of Control In-flight” and labelled “Pilot Induced”, although investigators have yet to establish the sequence of events that led to the emergency.