Flight returning to airport
A couple of years ago my wife was flying out to meet me in NY. She flew Virgin (LHR to JFK). A couple of hours into the flight the pilot announced they were returning to LHR with no explanation given. They landed back at Heathrow two hours later, sat on the tarmac for a while before a new plane was brought up alongside and everyone moved over.
This has always struck me as an odd occurrence and was wondering if anyone could volunteer some possible scenarios as to why this happened? We assume it wasn't a critical emergency as they opted to fly back to Heathrow rather than land at an Irish airport like Shannon which would have been closer, but what set of circumstances would make a pilot turn round like that?