A British Airways (BA) flight made a five-hour “flight to nowhere” on 22 April after its weather radar monitoring system failed – twice.
Radar issue happened twice
The BA12 flight out of Singapore Changi to London Heathrow was being served by an Airbus A380 and had already experienced problems before take-off. Its departure, scheduled for 11:20 pm local time, had been delayed by around four hours after the aircraft was forced to stop taxiing and return to a stand, due to what passengers were told was a weather radar problem with the craft.
The plane eventually departed at 3:10 am local time, for what should have been a 14-hour cruise to London. After just half an hour though, an announcement was made to passengers that the radar issue had reoccurred, making it necessary to return to Singapore.
Four hours circling
A U-turn was made over Malaysia, according to FlightAware tracking data, but the aircraft could not simply fly straight back to Changi since it was still carrying too much fuel and therefore was too heavy to make a safe landing. Planes are designed to land at certain weights to avoid impact damage, and so, though it seems like a climate crime, they must jettison excess fuel or burn it off before attempting emergency landings.
This meant the Airbus needed to dump large quantities of fuel before attempting its redescent. The already-delayed passengers therefore had to endure the half-hour return to Changi only to spend another four hours circling over the Straits of Singapore burning fuel supplies before touchdown.
British Airways, speaking to Business Insider, apologised for “the delay to customers’ travel plans after the aircraft returned to Singapore Changi Airport as a precaution following a minor technical fault”.
Double whammy
Passengers were reportedly offered accommodation and refreshments while awaiting news of alternative travel arrangements, with a new departure yet to be confirmed by the airline at 9:15 am on Tuesday morning. BA’s online information showed no other flights scheduled until the same time (11:20 pm) the following night – and even that one was delayed until Wednesday afternoon, indicating it was probably due to be flown by the same Airbus, having undergone checks and repairs.
A number of flyers were experiencing the double whammy of having missed onward connections at Heathrow. BA was in a similar position with staff and aircraft having failed to transfer and now in the wrong location to meet scheduling demands.
