Passengers aboard a Veuling flight heading for Rome on Sunday traveled not into another dimension, exactly, but at a low altitude around the wondrous land of England's south coast — before the plane returned to the boundaries of Gatwick Airport, where the flight began. The surreal trip was not that of the passengers' imagination, but instead the result of the plane having too much fuel, according to Yahoo! — yet another hiccup in the airline industry's already chaotic summer.
From Yahoo!:
The plane flew around the south coast of England for one hour and 51 minutes, according to Flightradar24. While the aircraft was circling, its altitude ranged from 5,900 to 8,000 feet, Flightradar24's data showed.
After almost two hours, the plane landed back at Gatwick Airport about 11:30 p.m., according to Flightradar24.
Some apparent passengers tweeted about the incident.
"After 5 minutes from the take off the pilot found out there was too much fuel on the plane," Francesco Ricci tweeted. "Now they are back in Gatwick and removing the unnecessary fuel." …
Plane-fuel problems add to the list of issues that passengers are facing during a chaotic travel season. A Delta Air Lines plane had to make a U-turn over the Atlantic Ocean last week because of a fuel imbalance, the airline confirmed to Insider. One passenger on board the flight told Insider he was terrified and thought he was going to die.
In addition, the crew of a Qantas Airways plane recently had to declare an emergency to get priority landing because the plane had only 40 minutes' worth of fuel left.
Next stop is anybody's guess.
