A British Airways flight from Cape Town to London Heathrow was forced to make an emergency diversion back to the Mother City just an hour after takeoff on Wednesday evening after a ‘technical issue’ reportedly knocked out power across the plane.
The aircraft involved in the incident was a four-and-a-half-year-old Airbus A350-100 with capacity for as many as 331 passengers that had also been involved in a second emergency diversion back to London Heathrow on Monday night.
According to Cape Town local councillor Jean-Pierre Smith, the pilots of British Airways flight BA58 “radioed in with an emergency due to smoke filling the cockpit” and requested an immediate return to Cape Town International Airport.
A spokesperson for British Airways denied reports that smoke had filled the cockpit but did not provide further details about the technical issue that forced the aircraft to make its emergency diversion.
Passengers onboard the aircraft (registration G-XWBG) said that power was knocked out across the cabin, with the in-flight entertainment system going dark as the plane flew back to Cape Town.
Councillor Smith, who is a member of the city council’s Safety and Security committee, said in a Facebook post that the city’s Fire & Rescue Department responded to the airport to assist with a Phase 2 emergency response.
The flight departed Cape Town at around 7:15 pm on April 16, but around an hour into the flight, as the aircraft was flying over Namibia, the plane suddenly made a U-turn and started flying back towards South Africa.
Despite the large emergency response, the airline noted that passengers were deplaned as normal and that they were provided with hotel accommodation due to the overnight delay.
On April 14, the aircraft was involved in a second diversion as it flew from London Heathrow to Cape Town. In that incident, the aircraft had just reached North Africa when it made a U-turn and headed back to London Heathrow, where it made an unusual 3:30 am arrival at the West London airport.
The airline did not confirm whether the two diversions were connected.
The aircraft then remained on the ground all day before heading to Cape Town on Tuesday evening.
According to the tracking website, Flight Radar 24, the plane remains on the ground in Cape Town and is not currently scheduled to return to London Heathrow.
