I was under the impression that this is, or was, a rumour and news forum.
Somehow, the first two posters seem to me to be poles apart. I have not looked at the profiles of either of them, and I should not need to as such.
The first makes what appears on the face of it to be a clear statement based on information that was pertinent at the time
it then made a Emergency landing at MAN.
The second then goes on to effectively rubbish that by saying
A non event by any means as it landed and taxied to stand
At the risk of appearing pedantic, I would respectfully suggest that if the BA crew of the Dash 8 declared an emergency, they AT THE TIME AND IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, did NOT regard is as a non event, if it had been a non event, they would either have just said they were returning with a problem, or declared a PAN. If they declared it as an emergency, then, in their view, at the time, and in accordance with their SOP's, they called it as they saw it and responded accordingly.
It may well be that they were able to land and taxy to stand, but that, again respectfully, is irrelevant to the point.
I am well aware that there are a lot of very sensitive people around here, and that there is a campaign to try to ensure that journalists and the like don't get information of the wrong kind from (hopefully) better informed sources. Accepted. At the same time, people who should know and understand do no favours to anyone by a throw away comment like the one above, and in many respects, that sort of attitude only serves to make journalists and the like even more suspicious and less inclined to trust what they are being told.
OK, in passing, maybe the wording is wrong, emergency is an emotive word, and perhaps implies a level of problem that may not be appropriate under all circumstances, but that's what we've got to work with, for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that the same word has to convey the same level of clarity in all languages. Emergency does however convey specific information that then alerts all concerned to the appropriate responses to the situation. The aircraft landed and made it's way to the stand without further visible problems. Good, that's the outcome everybody wants in the circumstances. However, if for whatever reason, that had not been the outcome, then the baying for heads to roll would have been rightly massive if the correct response from all the other people involved had not been instantly forthcoming.
I am also aware that (some of) the travelling public at large is more than mildly interested in safety and other related issues, and I for one am interested to hear if a particular aircraft type has a better or worse record than another, in that all other things being equal, if I have a choice of which carrier I am going to use, then reliability will figure in the equation, as my reason for travelling is that I want to be in a certain place at a certain time, and not sitting in a departure lounge or on a coach because the aircraft I was supposed to be travelling on has gone tech. The Dash 8 appears to be getting a bit of a reputation for unreliability, which is a pity, as in other respects, I have no objections to it per se, but if it is unreliable, for whatever reason, I'd rather know, and be in a position to make an informed judgement rather than be kept in the dark and perhaps inconvenienced as a result. In the same vein, while I understand the difficulties involved, if I see something that is abnormal, and then get told that "it's nothing", that too can make me even more uncomfortable. Both have happened to me, in one case on a Dash 8, so yes, I will declare more than a passing interest.
On a related issue, that to me is the danger of a closed user group here on Pprune. There is a real danger that issues that are ( or perhaps should be ) of wider public interest will end up not getting that wider interest because a few people are very sensitive, or insecure, or whatever. Aviation is changing, dramatically, as is the internet, and both have to embrace that change, and learn to live together in as much harmony as possible.