Passengers on board a flight bound for Singapore from Shanghai on Wednesday were stuck in the plane for nearly eight hours due to a technical fault.
Singapore Airlines (SIA) Flight SQ833 was scheduled to leave Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 4.50pm on Wednesday and arrive in Singapore around 10.20pm.
The captain told passengers that maintenance would have to board the aircraft, and he initially asked passengers to be patient for 30 minutes, which then turned into an hour, and then turned into a much longer rolling delay.
In response to queries from The Straits Times, an SIA spokesman said the Airbus A380 had encountered technical issues while it was still on the ground in Shanghai.
The spokesman added: “The aircraft returned to the bay and engineers were brought on-site to try to rectify the issue. For safety reasons, the ground power had to be disabled while the checks were going on.”
Passengers on board were served meals and refreshments, and ground staff were also present to assist passengers, said the spokesman, who added that the flight was subsequently cancelled as more time was required to fix the issues.
“Customers disembarked the aircraft at 12.30am and hotel accommodation was arranged,” said the spokesman. “All affected customers were rebooked on other flights (on Thursday) and have since departed Shanghai.”