G550 landing incident at London-Stansted Airport

UK investigators are examining a Gulfstream G550 which damaged the instrument landing system at London-Stansted (STN/EGSS) airport during an early morning arrival, forcing a downgrade of the site's low-visibility capability.

While the Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirms it is probing the incident, it has not given details of the jet involved. However, a source familiar with the situation indicates that the aircraft is a Saudi-registered airframe HZ-A6 (c/n 5038) and that it touched down some 25m (82ft) short of the runway threshold while landing at about 03:30 on 10 December.

The long-range, large cabin business jet struck an antenna and suffered undercarriage door damage as well as scratches to the hull.

Stansted’s operator has not given any detail about the event beyond confirming a G550 was involved and that the aircraft “landed safely”. It states simply that the incident “resulted in some damage to our ILS”.

NOTAM information for the airport states that the runway 04 ILS has been “withdrawn from service” and that the runway 22 ILS is downgraded to Category I.

Poor weather at Stansted combined with the ILS damage forced the subsequent diversion of several flights.

UK air traffic control service NATS, which is responsible for the ILS, has been working to restore the system to full capability.

(David Kaminski-Morrow - Flightglobal News)