Air Transport

For the second time in just over a week, an incident involving a British Airways CityFlyer regional jet has closed the runway at London City Airport.

All 67 passengers and four crew have been evacuated after the aircraft, arriving from Amsterdam, suffered a damage to its nose-wheel. CityFlyer exclusively operates BAE Systems Avro RJs.

The extent of the damage is unclear. BA says the aircraft, operating as flight BA8456, experienced a "nose-wheel failure on landing".

"As a precaution the emergency slides were deployed and the passengers were evacuated down the slides onto the runway," the carrier says.

"Unfortunately one passenger sustained a minor injury and is currently on the way to hospital."

In a statement London City Airport's operator simply states that the runway is closed "due to incident". Several flight have either been cancelled or diverted.

Eight days ago, on 5 February, City's runway had to be closed after a landing CityFlyer Avro RJ sustained minor damage to its nose-wheel assembly after arriving from Glasgow.

British Airways is to replace the CityFlyer fleet with a mix of Embraer 170 and 190 aircraft.