Virgin Plane Drama Pilot ‘Just Doing Job’

The pilot who successfully landed a Virgin Atlantic jet at Gatwick Airport after a major landing gear fault has said he was just doing his job.
In a statement issued as his relieved passengers from the flight landed safely in Las Vegas, David Williams praised colleagues and said any of the airline’s pilots would have done the same thing. He said: “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. “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.” VS43 Lands At Gatwick The plane landed without one of its sets of landing gear Virgin Atlantic said Mr Williams had been keen to stay out of the media spotlight over the last 24 hours, and the pilot added he was “keen to spend some private time with my family over the new year”. A specially scheduled flight meant most of the 447 passengers continued their journey on Tuesday after Monday’s flight suffered a major landing gear fault which forced it to return to Gatwick.