If I'd heard that PA message as a passenger, I'd have been curious but not a bit alarmed. If the flight had thereafter continued routinely, I'd probably have forgotten all about it by the time we landed. But a nervous passenger can link the routine call to a turnback and suddenly it becomes "a panicked PA call." The exaggeration is unfortunate but understandable, in the circumstances.
I do wonder, though, how on earth he knew they were "heading back to LHR at great speed." Carrying his own pitot/static system?
Last edited by stepwilk; 21st Dec 2011 at 17:11.