Emergency Landing @ Heathrow, 0930 Mon 22nd March
I was on an SAS flight from Heathrow to Copenhagen yesterday morning. Our MD-90 pushed back at about 0915 and taxied out for takeoff. We queued on a taxiwaay parallel to the the runway and from my window I could see that our aircraft was one of several aircraft amongst the Aer Lingus, BA and BMI Airbuses waiting it's turn to take off on Runway 09R. I watched two BA A320's take off followed by what appeared to be a HS-125 that had come from the Terminal 4 side of the Airport (judging by it's livery it may have been a RAF jet, it reminded me of the livery used on the Royal flight BAe-146's, white fuselage, red topped tail with a Union Jack). At this stage it was about 0930
After the HS-125 took off none of the waiting aircraft lined up on the runway and our Captain announced that there would be a delay of several minutes due to an emergency landing. After approximately five minutes a BA 777 landed on 09R. I assumed that the 777 was the aircraft involved in the emergency landing, but I was somewhat surprised when a few minutes later an all white DC-8 landed. Once it cleared the runway the waiting aircraft resumed takeoffs from 09R
I'm a regular traveler at Heathrow and I don't think I've ever seen a DC-8 at the airport in the last 10 years. My knowledge of the DC-8 is very limited but I'm resonably confident that it was one of the eariler shorter versions of the DC-8. It didn't appear to be a freighter and it didn't have any company or operaters name painted on it, just white with a blue cheatline and very clean.
Does anyone have any aditional information about this 'emergency landing', it wasn't exactly exciting but it was a brake from the normal Monday morning experience at Heathrow.