Passengers flew for nine hours to arrive back at the same airport they left from

A British Airways flight took off from an airport and flew for nine hours only for passengers to end up back at the same airport.

Long haul flights are bad enough as it is, but now imagine you climb aboard a small cabin, take off into the air and manage to entertain yourself for a whopping nine hours, motivated by the thought of ending up in a place a whole lot sunnier and warmer than London currently is, only to land, get off the plane, and realise you’re right back where you started.

On Monday (10 June), British Airways Flight 195 – a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner – took off from Heathrow Airport in London at around 9:57am – delayed from its original departure time of 9:25am – set to reach its final destination of George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston – originally by 1:45pm, as reported by One Mile At A Time.

However, the plane’s expected 10-hour, 45-minute journey took around nine hours, and saw passengers end up in exactly the same place they began at London’s Heathrow.

But why?

Well, according to the travel outlet, the aircraft managed to fly half of its original journey – reaching near the coast of Newfoundland and having been flying for around five hours – before it was forced to change its route.

It was then that an issue with one of the plane’s engines was identified, with a spokesperson for British Airways telling business insider that ‘a minor technical issue‘ was diagnosed.

It was ultimately resolved that, instead of carrying on forwards, the plane would turn back, cross over the Atlantic Ocean once again and return to London’s Heathrow.

It was around half way into its journey when it turned around (MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The flight is reported as touching back down in London at around 6:53pm, having completed a whopping 4,600-mile round trip.

A spokesperson for British Airways told Fox News: “[The plane] landed safely and customers disembarked as normal.”

“We’ve apologized to our customers for the disruption to their journey.”

Passengers were also re-booked onto the next available flights from London to Houston by the airline and provided details on how to claim money back, as well as being set up with hotels for the night too.

As to why the flight didn’t just keep going to Houston but turned around and traveled all the way back over the Atlantic Ocean to London, British Airways is reported as having a maintenance facility at London Heathrow and a British Airways pilot weighed in on the matter on the forum Flyer Talk.

They explained it sounds like there was ‘an engine surge on engine two’ of the plane which is typically ‘self recovering’.

However, they noted while this means it was not an ‘immediate concern’ for the current flight, it was ‘of concern for the subsequent’ flights booked on that specific aircraft after.

The pilot believes that because of a contract between Rolls Royce and British Airways, there may have been ‘direct input from the RR team in Derby’ – the plane’s engine was reportedly manufactured by Rolls Royce.

UNILAD has contacted British Airways and Rolls Royce for comment.