Airplane passengers endure 9-hour 'flight to nowhere'
FILE - An Airbus A320-251N from British Airways is landing at Barcelona Airport in Barcelona, Spain, on March 25, 2024. (Photo by Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A British Airways flight on its way to Texas recently crossed the Atlantic Ocean – and immediately went right back.
British Airways Flight 195 departed from Heathrow Airport on Monday morning en route to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. According to online flight tracker Flightradar24, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was in the air for five hours before its diversion.
The airplane, which can seat nearly 300 passengers, just barely grazed North America and flew along the coast of Newfoundland before heading back over the Atlantic to London.
Passengers and crew had traveled over 4,833 miles at the end of the nine-hour ordeal – and still no closer to their desired destination.
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British Airways told Fox Business that the mishap happened as a result of a "minor technical issue."
"The flight returned to London Heathrow as a precaution due to a minor technical issue," a spokesperson explained. "It landed safely and customers disembarked as normal."
"We've apologized to our customers for the disruption to their journey."
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Social media users were stumped by the move to divert back to Europe instead of landing at a nearby airport.
"Why Not Land in Halifax or...Nearby..?!" one X user questioned.
"I feel for the people in coach having went through a long flight already then knowing they’ll have to [go] through it all again," another wrote.
Other commentators found the humor in the situation.
"Maybe they realized they were supposed to go to the original Houston in Scotland," a social media user joked.
"Still, on the plus side, they didn't end up in Houston," another quipped.
British Airways told Fox Business that the impacted passengers were given hotel rooms and rebooked onto new flights. No additional details are known at this time.
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