A Virgin Atlantic 747 heading to Las Vegas as flight VS43 has made an emergency landing back at Gatwick. It had spent some time over the Bristol Channel dumping fuel and made a safe landing. It looks like the right hand landing gear had problems but it is now safely on the ground. As I write, the passengers are being deplaned on the main runway using the normal steps rather than the emergency chutes.
One problem that will be ongoing is that Gatwick only has a single runway and is the busiest single runway airport in the world. As well as VS43, there are likely to be considerable delays to all flights until the runway can be cleared and examined for any debris. If you have friends or relatives due to leave after about 3.30 pm London time, check with the airline. If there are going to be significant delays, internal and other short haul flights may well be the first to be cancelled so hopefully flights to the USA should not be too badly affected.
On the other hand, there will be a jumbo jet full of passengers in Las Vegas waiting for this plane for the return flight back to Gatwick. If you or friends and family are due to leave later today, check with Virgin Atlantic for instructions.
9:41 AM PT: All passengers are now off the plane. Some were reported to have minor injuries and were no doubt in distress.
As at the time of this post, all flights into and out of Gatwick are suspended. Incoming flights have been diverted to other airports. Since Heathrow is at virtually 100% capacity normally, the diversion is likely to be to London Stansted or regional airports like Birmingham.