British Airways Airbus A321neo suffers double tail strike at Heathrow

A British Airways Airbus A321neo suffered a double tail strike while attempting to land at London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday, November 13, 2026.

The aircraft, registered as G-TNEB, was operating flight BA431 from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. It touched down on runway 27L and its rear struck the ground twice. The cockpit crew aborted the landing and climbed away from the airport.

The incident was captured on a YouTube livestream operated by FlightRadar24 and Big Jet TV. A clip of the double tail strike had amassed some 213,000 views on the YouTube channel.

The aircraft made a second landing attempt, which was successful with no incident. It touched down at 10:50 AM local time, about 15 minutes after its first landing attempt at 10:35 AM local time. The flight was in the air for an hour and five minutes overall.

The aircraft has been taken out of service. RNZ states that at this stage, the aircraft involved is not scheduled to fly again for another two days. Simple Flying reports that data from Flightradar24 suggests the jet will remain out of service all day Friday, as it has not been rostered to operate any more flights until Saturday morning.

A British Airways spokesperson said: "The aircraft landed safely and we're assisting the AAIB with its investigation and are legally unable to comment further at this stage."

The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch is looking into the matter.

Sources

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