This is strange. A flight from London which only had a short distance left, turned around due to a MINOR engine fault, flew back over water for 9 hrs to get fixed in Heathrow!
What or Who was on that Plane, or Comms?
Some of the comments on this MSN article show people are not buying it!
them endure more than nine hours in the air.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner flew across the Atlantic Ocean and had just crossed the Canadian border when it started backtracking.
It took off from Heathrow Airport at 9.27am on Monday and touched down there at 6.54am on Tuesday after flying 7,779km in nine hours and 27 minutes.
A flight from London to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston would normally have only taken 30 to 40 minutes more than that.
The airline apparently made the decision to return to the UK due to its technicians and facilities being located there.
A British Airways spokesperson stated: ‘The flight returned to London Heathrow as a precaution due to a minor technical issue. It landed safely and customers disembarked as normal. ‘We’ve apologised to our customers for the disruption to their journey.’
The airline did not elaborate on the issue.
Several news outlets reported that it was related to the engines. The issue was not believed to be serious enough to warrant the plane landing immediately, according to The Independent.
All passengers were rebooked on other flights to Houston and to make connections in their original itineraries. Customers were also put in hotels and informed of how they could claim additional expenses.
The incident happened less than a month after a British Airways plane that departed from Heathrow Airport for Oslo, Norway, made an emergency landing at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol due to the cockpit filling with smoke mid-flight. The Airbus A320 carrying up to 190 people experienced the issue 90 minutes into the flight. Passengers were told that the emergency landing was owed to ‘safety fears’ and were told to deplane form the rear door that was farthest from the cockpit.
If it was serious enough to warrant the issue being fixed by flying back to London then it was serious enough to land immediately. Aircraft safety isn't usually treated so casually.
Also, how the hell did they have enough fuel to head back all the way? That's a lot of extra weight just for 'contingencies'.
You're right, this stinks to high heaven.
Vaxxed pilot wanting to het to home hospital while co capt flies?