Hazard team sent to Heathrow incident

LONDON Ambulance Service have confirmed their “hazardous area response team” was sent to Heathrow Airport on Thursday night (November 7).

It is understood passengers were checked over by the ambulance service because of an “incident” on the BA876 flight from Budapest.

Police, ambulance and fire services were in attendance as is protocol with emergencies on flights. Reports suggested passengers were being “detained” at Heathrow Gate 26. A spokesman for London Ambulance Service said: “We were called at 6:55pm today (7 November) to reports of an incident at Heathrow Airport, Hounslow. We dispatched an ambulance crew, two incident response officers and our hazardous area response team (HART) to the scene. We assessed five people at the scene but did not take anyone to hospital.”

The HART team are a group of paramedics who are trained to go into the “hot zone” of incidents.

Traditionally, paramedics have always had to wait for other services such as a fire and rescue service to bring patients from the heart of an incident to the edge of the inner cordon. However UK ambulance service HART teams now work alongside the other emergency services at the centre of serious accidents of threats to public health.A BA spokesperson said: “Our aircraft requested a priority landing as a precaution after experiencing a minor technical issue.“Our teams looked after our customers and helped get them on their way as soon as possible. We are sorry to our customers for the delay to their travel plans.”