Flight to nowhere for 214 passengers on a British Airways Boeing 787 bound for India
A British Airways flight to India dumped fuel and returned to London on Sunday after the pilots reported a suspected technical issue.
Flight BA35 had departed from London's Heathrow Airport at 1:15 p.m., more than 30 minutes behind schedule, en route to Chennai, India, with 214 passengers on board.
However, shortly after takeoff, the pilots noticed a problem with the aircraft's wing flaps and decided to turn the plane around as a precaution.
The plane involved was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a long-haul aircraft with a range of over 7,000 nautical miles.
Data from FlightRadar24 shows the aircraft climbed to about 15,000 feet before entering a series of holding patterns — first over southeast England and then over the English Channel — to dump fuel.
Aircraft flaps are panels on the wings that extend during takeoff and landing to provide extra lift at slower speeds.
Malfunctions can make landing difficult and require returning to base if discovered early in flight.
After about an hour of looping in the air, the Dreamliner landed safely back at Heathrow Airport at around 1:50 p.m.
A British Airways spokesperson told Business Insider: "The aircraft returned to Heathrow as a standard precaution after reports of a technical issue.
"The flight landed safely with crew and customers disembarking as they normally would, and our teams worked hard to get their journeys back on track as soon as possible."
The spokesperson added that this was not an emergency landing. It is fairly common for planes to return to their home bases in the event of in-flight issues, as it makes arranging new aircraft and onward travel for passengers easier.
The incident came just three days after an Air India 787-8 crashed shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad, killing 241 people on board.
A second Air India Dreamliner was also forced to return to Hong Kong on Sunday due to a separate suspected technical issue.
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