Within the last 15-20 minutes, a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350-1000 operating a flight from Las Vegas declared an emergency during the descent into Manchester.
Information is limited surrounding the incident.
Below is what we know on this so far…
Virgin Atlantic Flight VS86 – Las Vegas to Manchester…
Virgin Atlantic flight VS86, which declared the emergency, is a routine scheduled flight between Las Vegas and Manchester.
Furthermore, the aircraft involved in the incident was G-VNVR.
As per data from Planespotters.net, G-VNVR is a 2.3 year old Airbus A350-1000 that was delivered to the airline back in March 2024.
Of the A350-1000 variant, Virgin Atlantic has 12 of them in their fleet.
Within the 12, all are in active service, and offer an average fleet age of 5.4 years.
As well as the A350-1000, Virgin Atlantic has the following other aircraft in their fleet:
- 14 Airbus A330 Family aircraft.
- 17 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
In total, the airline has 43 aircraft in their fleet, of which all of them are in active service, and feature an average fleet age of 8.1 years.
Virgin Atlantic flight VS86, which declared the emergency, departed Las Vegas at 1912 local time on May 24th, bound for Manchester.
Around eight hours and 50 minutes into the flight, during the descent into the UK airport, the crew declared an emergency via the 7700 squawk code.
After close to nine hours in the air, the aircraft landed safely into Manchester without further incident.
Reason for the Emergency Revealed…
As per @FlightEmergency on X, it is understood that the reason for the emergency onboard Virgin Atlantic flight VS86 from Las Vegas to Manchester is due to an “unpredicted avionic issue” onboard the aircraft.
It has not been specifically noted what the avionic issue is, but clearly is serious enough to prompt an emergency call.
As soon as we have more information on this issue, then we will update you accordingly.
For now, this remains a developing story pending additional updates.
Continue to follow The Aviation Hub for more analysis and insight!
