LONDON — A British Airways passenger jet flying from London to Chicago descended 28,000 feet in just seven minutes after declaring an emergency due to an unspecified “technical issue,” the airline said Monday.
The Boeing 777 took off at 12:15 p.m. local time (7:15 a.m. ET) but started descending just 30 minutes later while flying over Ireland, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.
The plane turned around and spent around four hours zigzagging over the Bristol Channel, a waterway to the west of England, before landing back at London Heathrow Airport at 5 p.m. local time (noon ET).
“The aircraft landed safely after our highly-trained pilots returned to Heathrow following a technical issue,” British Airways said in an emailed statement. “Customers disembarked the aircraft normally and our teams are working to get their travel plans back on track as quickly as possible.”
Heathrow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Passengers will likely be put up in hotels by the airline until another flight can be arranged, as stipulated by the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.
Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) came under scrutiny last month after two technical problems in the space of two weeks caused major delays at several U.K. airports and hundreds of flights were canceled.
NATS blamed software issues for the delays.
Britain’s Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander acknowledged the situation had been “deeply frustrating” for passengers.
With 84.5 million passengers last year, Heathrow ranked seventh in the table of the world’s busiest airports, according to data published by Airports Council International.
Travel from Heathrow was severely disrupted in March last year when a massive fire at an electricity substation caused a predawn power outage at the global transport hub.
The closure affected more than 1,300 flights and 200,000 passengers.
After investigating 600 items of evidence related to the substation, the National Energy System Operator ruled out suspicious activity in a report saying a preventable moisture fault caused the fire, leaving almost 70,000 homes without power.