A British Airways Airbus A380 with more than 400 passengers on board turned back to Johannesburg airport due to a warning of smoke on board.
On Friday 1 August flight BA56 took off from South Africa’s main airport at 7.55pm for London Heathrow, on a journey expected to take over 10 hours.
But within 11 minutes of leaving the ground, the double-decker jet changed course and initially flew a circuit northwest of Johannesburg. The aircraft then flew east over Pretoria and made several more circuits before landing 53 minutes after take-off.
The “SuperJumbo” landed safely back at O R Tambo airport with over 100 tons of fuel in its tanks for the 5,620-mile flight to London Heathrow.
As is standard procedure, the aircraft was met by emergency vehicles.
One passenger who describes himself as “Symsie” wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Just landed #BA56 fire trucks outside.” He later added: “Fireman with masks rushed aboard when we parked. All safely disembarked now. But there are still emergency vehicles around the plane.”
A spokesperson for British Airways said: “The flight landed safely and customers disembarked normally following reports of a technical issue with the aircraft.
“We’ve apologised to our customers for the delay, and our teams are working to get their journeys back on track.”
The 12-year-old A380 involved eventually left Johannesburg late on Sunday night, and is due to arrive at Heathrow at around 9.30am on Monday morning – 52 hours behind schedule.
The return to Johannesburg triggered the cancellation of a round-trip on Sunday from London Heathrow to Boston.
That flight and the corresponding inbound departure were cancelled. If all passengers claim the £520 compensation they are due under air passengers’ rights rules, the bill for BA will be over £400,000.
On that occasion a spokesperson for BA told The Independent: “Our pilots returned to Johannesburg as a precaution due to a minor technical issue, and the aircraft landed normally.”
British Airways has only 12 Airbus A380 aircraft, which are used on long-haul routes to cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Singapore as well as Johannesburg and Boston.
Concerns have been raised about the reliability of the aircraft after a number of short-notice cancellations.
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