The most exciting part of the day however came not long after I met up with the two Michaels. Thomas Cook Airbus A330 G-OMYT commenced it's take-off roll, during which the right hand engine went bang and take-off was aborted in spectacular style. Upon reflection, only a minor incident, but at the time it felt big, what with the flash, cloud of smoke, the loudest pop imaginable, the aircraft skidding and swaying to a very quick halt, 3x go-arounds, God knows how many more placed in the hold, fire department scrambled, civilian fire department called as a precaution (sirens could be heard all around) and finally, about a minute later, the most horrid stench of rubber from tyres burst during the harsh braking. Due to the affected engine being on the far side of the aircraft, we initially thought it was simply a burst tyre, but two lot's of footage uploaded to YouTube confirm otherwise:

Video 1

Video 2

After a quick inspection by the fire department, the aircraft was able to vacate the runway under it's own power, with 23R now closed for 15 minutes for debris clearance and due to the drop in fire category because of the pre-occupied fire trucks. After ten minutes, much to our delight, 23L was temporarily re-opened for a single departure and 6x arrivals, including my first of two Thomson Dreamliners - great success!! The downside to all of this was the prospect of seeing the aircraft we'd all come to see, which had been noted over the south-east of England, diverting elsewhere, since at least one aircraft, belonging to a certain tight-arsed Irish airline that hadn't brought enough fuel to hold ("we have enough fuel to land on 23R but not enough if we have to backtrack down 23L"!!!) had diverted. Luckily, 23R soon re-opened and 11 arrivals later the An-225 turned up. An amusing aspect to all of this was the sight of G-MDBD being awkwardly towed into the Thomas Cook maintenance hangar earlier in the day, a lengthy process with lot's of little corrections due to the limited space, only for them to have to drag it back out again to make room for the sick G-OMYT! We have since learned the cause of the incident was an engineer left his PDA in the engine!!! Unbelievable Jeff!!

The An-225 became visible from a stupid distance away from the airport, giving us an early indication as to it's size, like it's closest counterpart, the A380, it's all wing and little body (well, not by any means little but you know what I mean). When it eventually made it to short finals, after what felt like an eternity, it appeared to be nearly stopped in mid-air, it simply floated in, and with so many wheels on the biggest undercarriage I've ever seen, a soft landing was inevitable. Despite being empty (it was hear to collect not drop-off), it still took up most of the runway and took a good 20 minutes to get on to stand in what can only be described as a 'cautious' taxi. As it passed the Emirates A380 it was interesting to compare the two aircrafts sizes, with the Antonov winning in length and width, failing only in height.