Passengers on a British Airways flight from Singapore to London Heathrow found themselves on an unexpected journey after their aircraft’s weather radar malfunctioned shortly after takeoff.
BA12 flight was scheduled to depart Singapore at 11:20 pm on Monday. However, due to a separate technical issue, passengers endured a four-hour delay before the plane finally took off at 3:10 am.
Unfortunately, their troubles didn’t end there. After climbing to 27,000 feet, the pilots were forced to turn back to Singapore due to the malfunctioning weather radar. With the aircraft fully fueled for the 13-hour flight to London, it was unable to land immediately and had to enter a holding pattern to burn off fuel to reach a safe weight for landing.
Flight data from Flight Radar 24 showed the aircraft circling off the coast of Singapore for four hours before finally returning to Changi Airport. The flight was subsequently cancelled, and passengers were accommodated in hotels for the night.
This incident adds to British Airways’ ongoing challenges with its Airbus A380 fleet, which returned to service in January 2022 after an extended period in storage during the pandemic. The A380, registration G-XLED, involved in Monday night’s events had been in storage since March 2020.
British Airways continues to view its A380s as an essential part of its fleet, but technical issues have led to frequent delays and cancellations. In this case, the repercussions extended beyond flight BA12, as the aircraft was scheduled to operate flight BA269 to Los Angeles the following day, which was also canceled due to the lack of available spare aircraft.
