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What: United Airlines Boeing 767-300 en route from London Heathrow to Chicago O’hare
Where: Keflavik, Iceland
When: 2:51 p.m. CDT Monday
Who: 200 passengers (178 passengers reported also )
Why: Just over three hours after takeoff, the flight landed at Keflavic, diverting because of smoke in the cockpit. There were no injuries; and passengers safely debarked onto the taxiway.

George’s Point of View

Online, the wife of a passenger aboard this flight said the following:

There was an electrical problem in the cockpit. You could smell it.The stewards took us through the emergency landing procedure. I was sitting in the exit row, so the steward went over it with me again. I knew it was serious when I saw the steward take out his passport and wallet from the overhead and put it on him. I got mine out and did the same. (So our bodies would be ID’d if we crashed.) We were flying at altitude and then we slowly descended to about 500 feet above the water. We didn’t hear anything from the pilot during this whole time. But you could see Iceland ahead. When we landed I gave a thumb’s up to a flight attendant. She smiled and said, everything’s fine, as if it we were never in danger. But then I saw her close her eyes and silently say a prayer. We exited the plane to ambulances and emergency equipment.
I called United customer service to ask about them getting me on another flight out of there. They said “we don’t fly to Iceland.”
I said, now you do!

This is attributed to the husband of Julia McEvoy.