British Airways flight departs Heathrow and arrives back in London after 11-hour ‘flight to nowhere’

British Airways passengers were forced to endure an 11-hour “flight to nowhere” when a Boeing 777-200 aircraft developed a “technical issue” on Sunday morning. Flight BA31 from London to Hong Kong was over four hours into the 12h 45m journey when the decision was made to return to its departure airport. Data from tracking site FlightRadar24 shows that the service was flying at 35,000ft over Turkmenistan when the 23-year-old Boeing 777-200 was turned around by the crew. The flight departed for Hong Kong International from Heathrow Airport on Saturday evening (29 June) at 8.55pm. Upon returning to the London runway 11 hours later – only two hours less than the original entire flight time – the Hong Kong service was cancelled. London Heathrow is British Airways’ home base with an onsite maintenance team established to make repairs. The airline said in a statement: “The flight returned to London Heathrow as a precaution due to a minor technical issue. It landed safely and customers disembarked as normal. We’ve apologised to our customers for the disruption to their journey.”<br/>