This video was taken on January 17th of a Swiss Air jet getting into difficulty on landing at LCA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5prz1Ae5QM
The safety of flying in 176,000 jets annually onto this stolport runway is questionable. Cross winds, fog and an incredibly exposed landscape which coupled with a short runway, 5.5 take off due to high buildings are a clear recipe for disaster.
You can see some comments about this incident on the PPRuNe Forums.
We must say that we really feel for those passengers who were on that jet - that must have been a terrifying experience.
We know that London City Airport's real plan in the future is to get rid of a load of the short haul flights and concentrate on the Category A jets flying transatlantic routes with BA et all and their Boeing A318s. After all, Richard Gooding is on the record saying he's got to make lots of money for Credit Suisse, AIG and GE and he intends to compete with Heathrow and Gatwick. How cosy.
If LCA could get a 737 in they would try...and with the current lack of noise management being applied by LB Newham and the airport - we are sure they could pull some murky, inaccurate figures out from the past which might allow it, in those 'strict noise management conditions' they keep mentioning but few of us ever see applied!!
