PA
A British Airways flight bound for Chicago turned back to Heathrow on Monday after dropping 27,000 feet in a matter of minutes while flying over Ireland, prompting a mid-air emergency declaration and a steep descent that flight-tracking sites captured in real time.
The flight departed Heathrow at around 12:15pm and had reached its cruising altitude of 36,000 feet before the sharp descent, which took the aircraft down to roughly 9,000 feet about half an hour into the journey. Flight-tracking data indicates the descent was controlled rather than a loss of control, with no evidence of a crash or free fall.
After the emergency was declared, the aircraft turned back toward the UK and spent around four hours zigzagging over the Bristol Channel, likely burning off fuel to reach a safe landing weight, before touching down safely at Heathrow just after 5pm.
British Airways confirmed the aircraft landed safely following a technical issue, saying its “highly-trained pilots” returned to Heathrow as a precaution. The airline said customers disembarked normally and that its teams worked to get affected passengers’ travel plans back on track as quickly as possible.
The incident adds to a string of high-profile technical issues affecting commercial flights in recent months, though British Airways has not disclosed further details on the specific nature of the technical fault that triggered Monday’s diversion.
