LONDON, Jan 17: A British Airways plane crash-landed at Heathrow airport on Thursday, injuring 11 people and triggering an investigation as to why the Boeing 777 flying in from China landed short of the runway.

Fire engines smothered the aircraft in foam after the landing at the world’s busiest international airport extensively damaged its wings and ripped off its undercarriage.

The wheels of the plane, which had a routine maintenance check in December, were still in the field where it crashed, several hundred metres from the runway.

“I win the lottery today,” Fernando Prado, one of the 136 passengers on board, said after being safely evacuated by emergency chute from the wreckage. He said the landing gear appeared to fail. “I saw the engine on the tarmac. Everything was over quickly. There was no panic at all,” he told BBC News.

An airport spokesman said that the Air Accidents Investigation Branch was inspecting the aircraft. “BA Flight 38 arriving from Beijing made an emergency landing at 1242,” he said.—Reuters