Crying passengers on board a transatlantic flight have hailed a hero pilot after he was forced to perform an emergency landing on broken landing gear.
The Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 with more than 450 people on board was meant to go to Las Vegas but was forced to return to London after developing a technical fault shortly after take-off.
For several hours the jumbo jet circled the airport and made several low-altitude passes so engineers could inspect the landing gear problem, leaving some passengers distraught as they were forced to adopt the brace position.
The plane finally landed with only three quarters of its landing gear down after a set of wheels on the starboard wing refused to drop.
Passenger Dan Crane, 24, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, said the mood before the landing was 'anxious'. He said: 'A lot were worried, some crying. They said it was an emergency landing and we had to brace on impact.'
But the terrified passengers then cheered and applauded the hero pilot - named only by passengers as 'Dave' - after he landed the jumbo jet safely with only a few on board suffering minor injuries.
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