• Delays after passenger jet lands at Heathrow with engine fire

    Stefan Wermuth / Reuters

    A worker walks past a British Airways passenger jet after it was towed off the runway following an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport west of London on May 24, 2013.

    By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

    LONDON - Europe’s busiest airport was disrupted for several hours Friday after a British Airways plane made an emergency landing at Heathrow with a fire in at least one engine.

    Thousands of travelers were delayed or diverted to other London airports following the incident, shortly after 8 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET).

    All 75 passengers were safely evacuated from the Airbus A319 using emergency chutes, but one of the airport’s two runways was closed for almost two hours and the other was also briefly shut.

    Significant delays and disruption were expected for the rest of the day at Heathrow, and British Airways said it was canceling all its short-haul flights – to the UK, Europe and parts of north Africa – until 4 p.m. local time Friday (11 a.m. ET).

    The stricken jet suffered technical problems as it took off for Oslo, Norway, and was forced to return for an emergency landing.

    Eyewitnesses reported smoke billowing from the right hand engine as the jet made its approach over south-west London.

    In a statement, British Airways said Flight BA762 had suffered a "technical fault," but fire officials said they had extinguished a blaze.

    Amateur video of the aircraft in the air showed smoke coming from one engine, and a picture posted to Twitter by one of the passengers after landing showed the aircraft covered in fire-retardant foam. 

    The incident will likely cause disruption for families getting away over the school holiday, which starts on Monday. Britain also has a public holiday on Monday, adding to the number of travelers using Heathrow.

    "We were able to reopen the northern runway within two hours of the incident and we are now focused on returning the airport to normal as quickly as possible," Heathrow's duty manager Mark Freeman told Reuters.

    David Wyllie, breakingnews.com, and Reuters, contributed to this report.

    This story was originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 4:30 AM EDT

  • China tells US Embassy to stop reporting Beijing pollution

    AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan

    In this file image from 2010, a man walks on a pedestrian overpass on a hazy day at Beijing's Central Business District.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    BEIJING - A senior Chinese official demanded on Tuesday that foreign embassies stop issuing air pollution readings, saying it was against the law and diplomatic conventions, in pointed criticism of a closely watched U.S. Embassy index.

    The level of air pollution in China's heaving capital varies, depending on the wind, but a cocktail of smokestack emissions, vehicle exhaust, dust and aerosols often blankets the city in a pungent, beige shroud for days on end.

    Many residents dismiss the common official readings of "slight" pollution in Beijing as grossly under-stated.

    The U.S. Embassy posts hourly air-quality data on its popular Twitter feed, the U.S.-funded Voice of America explains. Using data from a monitoring point on the embassy roof, the feed was set up in 2009 following widespread complaints that official government readings were understating pollution levels in the smog-filled capital city, the VoA reported.

    While China tightened air pollution monitoring standards in January, the official reading and the U.S. Embassy reading can often be far apart.

    Chinese experts have criticized the single U.S. Embassy monitoring point as "unscientific".

    Deputy Environment Minister Wu Xiaoqing went a step further, saying such readings were illegal and should stop, though he did not directly name the United States.

    Chinese are growing more outspoken about the "fog," now accurately calling it "smog," covering cities like Beijing.

    "According to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations ... foreign diplomats are required to respect and follow local laws and cannot interfere in internal affairs," Wu told a news conference.

    "China's air quality monitoring and information release involve the public interest and are up to the government. Foreign consulates in China taking it on themselves to monitor air quality and release the information online not only goes against the spirit of the Vienna Convention ... it also contravenes relevant environmental protection rules."

    The U.S. Embassy acknowledges on its website that its equipment cannot be relied upon for general monitoring, saying "citywide analysis cannot be done ... on data from a lone machine".

    Embassy officials were not immediately available for comment on Wu's criticism.

    Wu said China's air quality standards were drawn up in consultation with the World Health Organisation and "accorded with the present situation in our country".

    Despite his criticism, Wu acknowledged that China's air quality and overall environmental situation remained precarious, with more than one tenth of monitored rivers rated severely polluted, for example.

    Wu said the government was studying a long-mooted environment tax on polluting industries, though he did not give a timetable for when it might come into effect nor give details of how the tax might work.

    "We need to make sure that certain companies are fulfilling their environmental obligations," he added. The tax "will ensure companies bear a corresponding cost for the damage and pollution their emissions cause". 

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Fog and air pollution disrupt travel in Beijing

    AFP - Getty Images

    The new China Central Television (CCTV) tower hardly visible as fog covers most of Beijing on Saturday. More than 400 flights to and from Beijing airport, including around 35 international services, were cancelled or delayed due to thick fog and strong air pollution covering the city, which the US embassy own measuring system, said pollution in Beijing had reached the "hazardous" level early March 17, before dropping one notch to "very unhealthy" later.

    AFP - Getty Images

    Vehicles make their way along a highway as fog covers most of Beijing on Saturday.

    AFP - Getty Images

    Passengers wait for their flights as almost 250 flights were cancelled, including some 15 international services, while more than 180 flights were delayed, including about 20 international services at the Beijing Capital International airport as visibility was at less than 200 metres (650 feet), official state news agency Xinhua said, blaming "widespread fog" for the disruption, in Beijing on Saturday.

    See more pictures from Beijing in PhotoBlog.