Gerrard Kaonga
Texas-bound passengers recently experienced a bizarre nine-hour 'flight to nowhere'.
Travelling long distances by plane can prove to be quite stressful. Making sure you have everything you need for the trip, hoping your luggage arrives safely, and just making your flight in general.
But you would hope the stress stops when you get sat in your seat and the plane takes off without a hitch.
Well for an unfortunate group of travellers, they ended up going on what appeared to be the most pointless journey ever.
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Passengers on British Airways Flight 195 departed from London’s Heathrow airport on Monday morning (June 10) enroute to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.
According to online flight tracker Flightradar24, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was in the air for five hours before its diversion.
Diversions can be annoying at the best of times since you don’t end up where you expected to be and they can add on unnecessary hours to your journey.
However, in this case, the diversion sent the travellers back to exactly where they came from - Heathrow Airport.
Passengers and crew had travelled over 4,833 miles at the end of the nine-hour ordeal - and were still no closer to their final destination.
Speaking to Fox Business, British Airways has said the incident was due to a 'minor technical issue'.
A spokesperson for the airline said: "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 apologized to our customers for the disruption to their journey."
British Airways said the impacted passengers were given hotel rooms and were rebooked onto new flights.
However, on social media, people have been asking the same question - why the flight simply didn’t divert to an airport close to the US since they were grazing the coast of Newfoundland in Canada before heading back over the Atlantic.
“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," one user wrote.
Another asked: "Why Not Land in Halifax or...Nearby..?!"
While someone else claimed: “My colleague was on this flight. Pilot reported an engine fault and the pilot advised repairs would be easier by RR at Heathrow rather than travel on to Houston."
UNILAD has contacted British Airways for comment.