Virgin Atlantic hero pilot speaks

A Virgin Atlantic Boeing passenger jet performs an emergency landing at Gatwick Airport after developing a landing gear fault. The pilot has spoken about his actions that saved the lives of the passengers on board.

The "hero" pilot who safely landed a stricken Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet after its landing gear dramatically failed while carrying more than 400 passengers has spoken out about the terrifying ordeal, saying: 'I was just doing my job'.

Senior pilot David Williams, 47, was praised for carrying out a 'textbook' landing of the Boeing 747 after it developed a technical fault shortly after take-off yesterday afternoon.

The aircraft was bound for Las Vegas but was forced to return to London where Mr Williams, who lives near Horsham, Sussex, carried out an impressive emergency touch-down on broken landing gear, saving the lives of 447 passengers.

In a video that emerged afterwards, the calm pilot was heard ordering passengers to brace for landing, saying over the speakers: 'Stay in the brace position until the aircraft stops completely'.

The terrified passengers then spontaneously cheered and applauded in praise of the pilot after he landed the jumbo jet without a hitch.

One passenger told how Mr Williams's 12-year-old daughter was on board the flight during the terrifying episode.

After they had landed safely, passengers took to Twitter to thank the pilot - whom they knew only as 'Dave' - calling him 'incredibly skillful' and praising his calm demeanour throughout the ordeal.

Passengers cheered and applauded the pilot after he safely landed the plane. Photos / Supplied

Mr Williams, who lives near Horsham, said today that he was 'really proud' of his colleagues who worked 'really hard in a difficult situation'

Mr Williams said today he was 'really proud' of his colleagues who worked 'really hard in a difficult situation'

Today, the father-of-three, who has more than 20 years' flying experience, remained modest about his heroics - but admitted the incident had been 'out of the ordinary'.

In a brief statement, he said: 'All of our pilots at Virgin Atlantic are trained to the highest standards and we go through regular testing to deal with any scenario that may arise.

'Clearly this was an out of the ordinary landing but I was just doing my job and any one of our pilots would have taken the same actions.'

He added: 'I'm really proud of my colleagues on the ground and in the air and the support they gave me during this event - everyone worked really hard in a difficult situation and we are delighted that our customers were able to travel to Las Vegas the next day for their New Year's Eve celebrations.

'Thank you for your interest and I hope you can respect my request for privacy as I am keen to spend some private time with my family over the New Year.'

A spokesman for Virgin Atlantic added that they were 'immensely proud' of the pilot.

Sir Richard Branson was also quick to add to the heartfelt thanks expressed by terrified passengers, writing on Twitter: 'Well done VirginAtlantic pilots & team for safe & skillful landing of VS43. Thoughts with passengers & crew, thanks for support & patience.'

Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic chief executive Craig Kreeger met with Mr Williams and the rest of the on board staff to thanks them for their heroics.

The drama unfolded yesterday after the flight took off from Gatwick airport.

For several hours, the jumbo jet had circled the airport and made several low-altitude passes so engineers could inspect the landing gear problem, leaving some passengers distraught.

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.

The person who filmed the drama inside the aircraft later wrote online 'took off from Gatwick and now back at Gatwick, the plane just made an emergency landing with 2 wheels, not a clue how he did it', before describing it as 'crazy'.

Today, Jean Lightman, a close neighbour of Mr Williams, said the pilot was a very 'quiet and unassuming man' who would not want any fanfare about yesterday's incident.

She said: "He would probably think he's just doing his job. He's a very private sort of guy. He's very unassuming.

"He always says hello when we see him out and about, he's a very nice man, a family man. I'm very pleased it all ended well, I would have expected him to be very calm and collected."

She said his children were all of school age.

Her husband added: "We'll have to crack open the bubbly now that we have a hero living next door."

According to his Facebook page, Mr Williams is a captain with Virgin Atlantic. It says he has previously worked for Monarch Airlines between 1994 and 1998.

The profile also states that he was educated at Shebbear College, a boarding school in north Devon.

After the landing, terrified passengers - who had endured a nerve-racking few hours circling above the south coast after the problem was identified - spoke of their relief.

Passengers are helped to disembark the Boeing 747. Photo / Jordan Mansfield Getty Images)

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.'

Mr Crane, who was with family and friends, said the crew kept everyone informed, adding: "They said it was an emergency landing and we had to brace on impact."

David Gillespie, 28, and new wife Sandra, from Belfast, were flying to Las Vegas for their honeymoon. Mrs Gillespie, 27, praised Mr Williams and his cabin crew for keeping everyone calm.

"I was terrified. I just thought 'I don't know if we are going to get out of this alive'," she said. "It was very scary. I'm so glad to be back, we're very relieved."

Plumber Dean Turner and wife Stacy told how they sent texts with their final goodbyes to relatives as the cabin crew shouted 'brace, brace'. They'd planned the holiday as a treat for their daughter who just had major spinal surgery.

Mrs Turner, of Haverigg, Cumbria, said: "We text our final goodbyes on the plane to family saying we didn't know if we would survive. Me and my husband just looked at each other and thought 'this is it." It was horrific.'

The family including Khenya, 16, Ellie, 13, and Maisie, four, had booked a holiday to New York for New Years, but when there were no hotel rooms available they swapped for the £6,500 Las Vegas trip.

Mrs Turner said: "Khenya had major surgery in the summer because she had scoliosis and had to have spinal fusion. This was supposed to be a treat for her.

"She has a heart defect and previously had open heart surgery and survived meningitis. And now with this too, we think we must have a guardian angel watching us. She's blessed."

Of the landing she said: "He went extremely fast from one side to the other four or five times and that freaked people out.

"The landing was smoother than others I've had. It was probably less dramatic on board than it was watching it on TV. It is going to go down as one of the greatest emergency landings in history.

"We knew he was going to do it but it was horrific. It didn't work so he told us he was going to put on full throttle and drop. It was like zero gravity. It was so quick. It was like being on the world's worst roller coaster.

"People were being sick and people had nosebleeds. There were a lot of scared people. Ellie thought she was going to die. She was screaming on the plane.

"The shaking didn't work so the pilot said he was going to have to burn fuel by flying round and round to make the plane lighter.

"He then told us we were going to do an emergency landing.

"At this point we were terrified. We had to get into the bracing position and the plane went deadly silent. They shouted 'brace, brace' brace' and then 'head down, feet back' over and over again.

"But when we landed it was really smooth, just like any other flight and everybody cheered. The cabin crew and pilot were brilliant. I couldn't fault them.

"They had clean clothes and dinner waiting for us. They offered us another plane but we were all traumatised. They've offered counselling and a course to help us get over our fear of flying now. If we get on a plane again it will have to be a very short flight.

'We've watched things like this on the news but we never thought it would happen to us. My dad was tracking the plane and friends were watching the news.

'Maisie slept through most of it. She had no idea what was going on when I told her to put her head down. Then when we got off the plane she said to me 'is this Las Vegas?''

This morning, passengers from yesterday's grounded flight who wished to continue their journey flew out from Gatwick on a specially-arranged flight at 11am, a Virgin spokesman said.

Just 415 of the original 447 passengers chose to fly today.

A Gatwick airport spokesman said there had been seven flight cancellations so far today as a knock-on effect of yesterday's incident and that there was an average 20-minute delay across flights.

He said most services were operating as normal, but he advised passengers to check with their airlines on the status of their flight before travelling. .