BBC

Saturday, 3 February, 2001, 21:09 GMT Plane scare for Met police chief

Sir John Stevens: Metropolitan Police Commissioner since February last year A plane being flown by the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, has been involved in an emergency at Newcastle Airport.

Sir John was flying a twin-engined Piper Seneca plane which had problems with its undercarriage when the nose wheel landing gear failed to engage properly about 1100GMT on Saturday.

After several attempts to free it, Sir John decided to make an emergency landing using just the main wheels under the wings.

The aircraft managed to land safely although there was a small amount of damage to the plane's nose.

The plane was forced to circle until 1330GMT to burn off fuel before coming in to land.

Newcastle Airport was closed for about an hour during Saturday's emergency.

Neither Sir John nor his male co-pilot was hurt.

Second emergency

It was the second time that the commissioner has been involved in an emergency.

Last year his plane hit severe turbulence as he flew on an aid mission to Romania and was forced to make an emergency landing in Vienna.

Sir John, 58, praised emergency services on the scene who helped talk him down.

He said: "I would like to thank all those who gave advice and helped us to make a perfect emergency landing with minimal damage to the aircraft."

A police spokeswoman described the commissioner as an "experienced pilot" but would not confirm when he gained his pilot's licence or how many hours flying he had accumulated.

Minimal disruption

An airport spokesman told BBC News Online the emergency had caused only minimal disruption to other flights at the airport.

He said: "It caused very little disruption. There was only one or two aircraft holding above."

He added that this type of emergency was relatively rare.

The same model of plane was involved in the 1 June Newmarket accident where jockeys Frankie Dettori and Ray Cochrane narrowly escaped death and their pilot was killed.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 03, 2001