{"id":29245,"date":"2026-05-02T15:31:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/29245\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:31:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:31:02","slug":"air-canada-flight-ac853-to-toronto-is-declaring-an-emergency-and-returning-to-heathrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/29245\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada flight AC853 to Toronto is declaring an emergency and returning to Heathrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Air Canada flight bound for Toronto was forced to declare an emergency and return to London Heathrow Airport shortly after departure on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p>LONDON \u2014 Flight AC853, operated by a Boeing 777-300ER (registration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airnavradar.com\/data\/registration\/C-FITL\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">C-FITL<\/a>), departed Heathrow at 08:34 BST. According to flight tracking data, the aircraft climbed to its initial cruising altitude of 34,000 feet and was heading west over the Atlantic when the crew initiated an emergency turnaround.<\/p>\n<p>Incident Timeline08:34 BST: Flight AC853 departs London Heathrow (LHR).09:15 BST: Aircraft reaches cruising altitude of 34,000 feet.09:30 BST: Crew declares an emergency, transmitting a Squawk 7700 code, indicating an urgent situation requiring priority handling by Air Traffic Control.10:05 BST: Expected touchdown back at <a href=\"https:\/\/cam.airlive.net\/lhr\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">London Heathrow<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The nature of the emergency has not yet been confirmed by Air Canada, though a \u201c7700\u201d code is standard procedure for a wide range of issues, from technical malfunctions to medical emergencies on board.<\/p>\n<p>Aircraft Details<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft involved is a Boeing 777-300ER, a long-haul workhorse of the Air Canada fleet. Records show the specific airframe, registered as C-FITL, is a frequent visitor to the London-Toronto corridor.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency services at Heathrow are reportedly on standby, a standard \u201cfull emergency\u201d protocol for any aircraft returning with a 7700 squawk. No injuries have been reported at this time.<\/p>\n<p>This is a developing story. Updates will be provided as more information becomes available from Air Canada and Heathrow airport authorities.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE 09:40 BST<br \/>The airline is scheduling a new departure from Heathrow at 11:30.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE 10:02 BST<br \/>Touch down on runway 27L.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE 10:07 BST<br \/>Landings were suspended on south runway.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE 10:11 BST<br \/>The aircraft taxied to the gate, escorted by emergency vehicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Air Canada flight bound for Toronto was forced to declare an emergency and return to London Heathrow&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8295,13623,13624,17,13625],"class_list":{"0":"post-29245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ac","9":"tag-ac853","10":"tag-c-fitl","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-lhr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}