The windscreen of a British Airways aircraft got shattered by a block of ice that fell from another plane flying 1,000 feet above it, NDTV reported.
The affected Boeing 777 aircraft — flying at an altitude of 35,000 — was en route from London's Gatwick airport to Costa Rica in Central America, the media outlet said, citing Daily Mail.
The repairs were carried out in California as the pilotsof the British Airways Flight BA2236 managed to fly it with adamaged windshield. Around 200 passengerscould not reach home in time,who were due to be back in London by Christmas Eve.
On December 23, the flight was about toleave San Jose for Gatwick, but it was delayed by at least 50 hours because of the time taken torepair the windscreen.
Initially, the passengers were told to expecta delay of 90 minutes for their overnight trip. However, they were forced to spend one more nightat the airport hotel in San Jose due to the failure to get a plane diverted from Jamaica.
The Independent reported that Jo Mitchell and Geir Olafsson, who were on a honeymoon trip, had to return to their home in Edinburgh via Gatwick for Christmas.
“We were desperately trying to find a connecting flight at this point that would get us there in time to not miss his family Christmas,” Ms Mitchell told the publication.
She continued: “The BA app was saying something vague about the flight being delayed to the next day. The flight time, however, only showed a four-hour delay. We had received no information via email or message so we hoped it was just a glitch.”
She further said that airline staff made the people at the airport emotional by informing them that they would miss Christmas. The people showed anger and others sobbed over this information.
In response to the incident,a British Airways spokesperson told The Independent: "We would like to send a heartfelt apology to the customers on this flight, who have had their Christmas plans ruined. We will never fly an aircraft unless we feel it is completely safe to do so, and on this occasion, our engineers were unable to clear it to fly."