By Peter Spiegel and Quentin Peel in Brussels

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has agreed to drop a plan to help fund a €115bn Greek bail-out with a €50bn bank tax, a significant victory for Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who extracted the concession at a late night meeting in Berlin ahead of an emergency summit of eurozone leaders.

The tax plan, which would have raised €10bn a year for five years through a 0.0025 per cent levy on all assets held by eurozone banks, was strongly resisted by Berlin, which saw the plan as taking too long to implement and raise funds, which would have been used for a massive Greek bond repurchase programme.

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“What is driving much of the lack of confidence and uncertainty is politics globally,” he said, warning that attempts in Europe to “place all the burden of the restructuring on the backs of the populace” risked social unrest in the years ahead.

“They are forcing these changes in the standard of living without ever discussing the possibility of bondholders getting less than par. I don’t look at that as a positive outcome.”

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As the jet touched down at Heathrow a member of the flight crew announced to passengers that “Captain Bob Diamond” had performed an “exemplary landing”.

He also joked that he had been in charge of the take off from Nigeria six hours earlier and said: “It shows there is really no need to grow up,” the Daily Mail reported.

Both Virgin and Barclays strongly denied that the £95 million banker had been in control of the plane but admitted that he had been in the cockpit during the landing.

Under laws brought in in the wake of the September 11 attacks, passengers are forbidden from being in the cabin while the engines are on.

“Clearly we will investigate details of the alleged incident.”

Among the passengers on the Airbus A340-300 were the prime minister, the International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, Trade minister Lord Green and Vittorio Colao, the chief executive of Vodafone.

Virgin Atlantic said Mr Diamond had been in the fold-down “jump seat” in the cockpit behind the pilot but was not in control of the plane.

A spokesman said the announcement was “tongue-in-cheek”.

No survivors were found.

The aircraft, carrying the entire Sundance board, went missing on Saturday as board members made their way to the company’s Mbalam iron-ore project, on the border of Cameroon and the Republic of Congo, to conduct high-level meetings with government representatives of both countries.

The chartered aircraft was carrying chairperson Geoff Wedlock, MD and CEO Don Lewis, company secretary John Car-Gregg, and nonexecutive directors Ken Talbot, John Jones and Craig Oliver.

Four other people, including the two pilots were also on board.

Sundance had suspended its operations in the two countries to focus its attention on search and rescue operations, and a detailed air and ground search was launched.

The explorer said on Tuesday that the crash site had been secured, with two Sundance contractors and a representative of the French Military remaining with the bodies.

Given the remoteness of the crash site, Australian mining contractors located in the vicinity would commence clearing access tracks to the accident site.