LONDON — A British Airways flight from London to Seattle returned to Heathrow Airport after having a mid-air emergency over Scotland.
British Airways flight 49, a Boeing 777, dumped fuel over the Irish Sea Friday about an hour after departing from London at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time.
KIRO 7 spoke with a passenger who was on board. He said they were about an hour into the flight and people had just started watching the in-flight movie, when the captain came over the intercom and said they were turning around.
The captain said there was a loss in cabin pressure and they had to dump fuel on the way back to the airport. But he told everyone there wasn't anything to worry about.
Some of the 14 crew members had to wear oxygen masks for the flight back to Heathrow.
Joe Woods, from Seattle, told Jeff Dubois on the phone that he didn't feel any loss in air pressure, but apparently, others did.
"The folks working on the plane said that some of the people were feeling dizzy up toward the front because of the oxygen ratios or whatever was going on and there was nothing they could do on board, so Heathrow instructed them that they had to turn around," said Woods.
Woods said there was never any panic and people seemed more concerned about trying to get on a different flight back to Seattle.
The flight landed safely.
As for an official cause of the emergency, there's no word from British Airways yet.
KIRO
