Passengers on a British Airways flight from London to Düsseldorf, Germany, were left bewildered on Monday when their plane landed in Scotland by mistake.
Passengers only realized they were in the wrong country when an announcement was made welcoming them to Edinburgh after the plane landed, the BBC reported.
The airline said the diversion was an accident as paperwork for the flight, operated by German firm WDL Aviation, was filed incorrectly.
A British Airways flight bound to Düsseldorf, Germany, from London, England, accidentally landed in Edinburgh, Scotland, instead: 525 miles away from where it should have been.
British Airways said in a statement to the Business Insider that the plane ended up in Edinburgh after the flight paperwork was submitted incorrectly.
Passengers only realized they were in the wrong country when an announcement was made welcoming them to Edinburgh after the plane landed, the BBC reported.
“We have apologised to customers for this interruption to their journey and will be contacting them all individually,” British Airways’ statement said.
German firm WDL Aviation ran the flight, which left London’s City Airport, for British Airways. British Airways said it was working with WDL to work out how the wrong flight plan was filed.
WDL aviation said it was trying to determine the cause of the “obviously unfortunate mix-up.”
The flight was refuelled and set off again, this time directly to Duesseldorf.
A passenger named Son Tran tweeted about the flight after it landed and asked for an explanation, describing it as a “mystery travel lottery.”
He responded to British Airway’s official account after it said the flight was diverted, and said it felt like an “honest mistake rather than a diversion” at the time.
Reactions were, obviously, brutal:
@British_Airways can you please explain how can my morning flight taking off from LCY to Dusseldorf land in Edinburgh ? While an interesting concept, I don’t think anyone on board has signed up for this mystery travel lottery… #BA3271 #frequenttravel #britishairways – Son Tran (@sontrantuan) March 25, 2019
This feels like an honest mistake rather than a diversion. The crew was convinced of the Edinburgh flight path from the get-go… – Son Tran (@sontrantuan) March 25, 2019
“The pilot said he had no idea how it had happened. He said it had never happened before and that the crew was trying to work out what we could do,” Sophie Cooke, a passenger on the flight, told the BBC.
