First female jumbo jet captain retires

The UK’S first woman to captain a jumbo jet has retired after landing at Gatwick Airport for the last time.

Virgin Atlantic pilot Yvonne Kershaw fought back tears as she described stepping off the Boeing 747 flight from Cancun, Mexico, yesterday.

The crew faced a challenging journey after a passenger was taken ill but the aircraft landed in London as planned, where it was met by an ambulance.

Mrs Kershaw, a grandmother from West Sussex, joined the airline in 1990 and was granted command of the aircraft three years later.

The 64-year-old said many people have “preconceptions about what an airline captain should look like” and that initially the main response from passengers was “surprise”. 0 Pilot Yvonne Kershaw joined the airline in 1990