A British Airways jet suffered a shattered windscreen when a block of ice fell from another plane flying 1,000ft above, causing misery for passengers unable to get back to the UK for Christmas.
The Boeing 777 was flying from London Gatwick to Costa Rica at 35,000ft when the ice struck its windshield in a ‘one-in-a-million chance.’
The pilots were able to fly the plane into San Jose but the repairs needed spelt disaster for some 200 passengers who had been due back in London by Christmas Eve.
Their flight was rescheduled for the following evening but failure to get a plane diverted from Jamaica meant that they were forced to spend another night in the airport hotel, finally leaving on Boxing Day – 50 hours behind schedule.
Flight BA2236 had been due to leave San Jose for Gatwick on the evening of December 23 and passengers were initially told to expect a 90-minute delay.
But because of the cracked windscreen, the plane required specialist repairs. The passengers were taken to a hotel where the only available meal was from a Denny’s fast food restaurant and were then taken back to the airport on Christmas Eve for a planned 10pm departure.
However, they arrived to find that efforts to divert a plane from Jamaica to pick them up had failed because the crew were at the end of their permitted working hours.
BA2236 finally left 50 hours late at 8.35pm on Christmas Day, and arrived in London shortly after 12pm on Boxing Day.
BA expressed a ‘heartfelt apology’ to passengers and blamed the lengthy delay on the smashed windscreen.
A spokesperson said: ‘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.
