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Technical issue forces British Airways flight BA31's return from mid-air

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Technical issue forces British Airways flight BA31's return from mid-air
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Justin Foster Private Aviation Journalist | Simple Flying

British Airways flight BA 31 returned to London due to a technical issue after flying a third of the route to Hong Kong. Passengers endured an 11-hour journey to return to London before the flight was eventually canceled. The same service the next day was also disrupted by a medical emergency, causing another mid-flight diversion.

A British Airways Boeing 777 aircraft bound for Hong Kong had to turn around recently due to a technical issue. The service takes more than 12 hours to complete, but the incident resulted in the aircraft flying for over 10 hours just to return to London.

On June 29, British Airways flight BA 31 between London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) had to return to London after flying for about a third of the route. Per Flightradar24, the Boeing 777 took off at 20:55 and reached Turkmenistan when it turned around at 35,000 feet. The airline said the decision to return to London was taken after the aircraft developed a technical problem. LHR is British Airways' main base, and a proper maintenance team is available there.

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However, passengers had to endure around 11 hours of journey just to come back to London. The service usually takes a little over 12 hours to land in Hong Kong. The flight was eventually canceled, with British Airways commenting, "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 [sic]to our customers for the disruption to their journey."

Coincidentally, the same service the next day was also disrupted mid-flight following a medical emergency onboard. According to data by Flightradar24, the 777 diverted to Budapest, where it eventually took off at 02:01 for Hong Kong.

The aircraft involved in the June 29 incident is an almost 24-year-old Boeing 777-200ER registered as G-YMMI. It was delivered to British Airways in November 2000 and has accumulated more than 100,000 flight hours across 12,609 flight cycles as of April 2024, per ch-aviation. It offers a total of 272 seats, with 184 in economy class, forty in premium economy class and forty-eight in business class.

British Airways has more than fifty active Boeing 777s in its fleet; currently comprising forty Boeing B777-200ERs and fifteen B777-300ERs according data from ch-aviation.com . Its widebody fleet also includes Boeing B787s , Airbus A350 -1000 s & Airbus A380 s .

Long-haul flights can be tiring but deboarding at intended destinations makes them bearable; however some flights must return back home causing longer journeys like recent BA case . In last year alone several incidents similar have happened globally including one Flair Airlines Canadian carrier whose trip ended up taking ten hrs instead original planned time duration three-and-a-half-hours because bad weather conditions diverted plane elsewhere before finally heading back start point again without reaching desired location first place !

Another notable instance occurred during Auckland New Zealand floods June twenty-three wherein Emirates American Airlines both forced revert planes originating cities making extended “flights nowhere” respectively thirteen ten hour durations!

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Organizations Included in this History
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