Passengers on a Cathay Pacific flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong spent a grueling 28+ hours stuck on the same plane, unable to deplane, and with limited food or drink after record-breaking rainfall prompted an unscheduled and very lengthy diversion.
The Boeing 777 with as many as 294 passengers on board departed Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) at around 12:55 am on August 4 for what should have been a 13-hour transpacific flight, but flight CX-883 didn’t end up arriving in Hong Kong until 7:15 pm on August 5 – more than 28 hours after it first departed.
The bum-numbing journey went horribly wrong after Hong Kong issued a rare ‘Black’ rainstorm warning, which saw more than 13.8 inches of rain pour down on the territory in just a matter of hours.
Hong Kong experienced its highest daily rainfall for August since 1884, prompting widespread travel disruption that effectively shut down the usual bustling city.
By the time the Black warning had been declared, however, flight 883 was already in the air and heading towards Hong Kong.
The pilots were close to lining up the 15-year-old widebody aircraft for final approach into Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok Airport, descending to around 5,000 feet, before abandoning the landing and entering a holding pattern off the Hong Kong coast.
Not long after, the pilots gave up on the prospect of trying to land in Hong and diverted towards Taiwan, landing without incident in Taiepi.
Once safely on the ground, however, the nightmare journey for the passengers really started. Passengers on board flight 883 say they were not allowed to deplane and were effectively held against their will while the crew waited for the weather in Hong Kong to improve.
In the end, the delay in Taiwan stretched on for nearly 11 hours, with only limited food and drink available onboard.
Here’s how the flight timings panned out (measured in Coordinated Universal Time or UTC to take account of time zone changes):
- August 4, 07:30 am UTC: Flight 883 starts taxiing for departure at Los Angeles International Airport
- August 4, 09:40 pm UTC: The pilots of flight 883 discontinued their approach for landing at Hong Kong.
- August 4, 11:32 pm UTC: Flight 883 lands at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and is sent to a remote stand away from the airport building.
- August 5, 09:44 am UTC: Flight 883 starts taxiing to the runway to continue its journey to Hong Kong.
- August 5, 11:37 am UTC: The plane eventually arrives at its gate at Hong Kong Airport.
Some passengers on the plane claim they were told that the airline cited insurance reasons for not allowing them to deplane during the lengthy ground delay in Taiwan. Cathay Pacific even had to arrange for a change of pilots and cabin crew during the prolonged ground delay to ensure the crew were fit to fly the remaining 807 km to Hong Kong.
Cathay Pacific did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CX has sure gone downhill in customer care. At a bare minimum there is no reason not to be able to hire one of the catering companies to bring on food and water. That’s when the passengers need to collectively mutiny and exit the plane themselves via the emergency slide if need be. The crew can’t stop a critical mass of passengers. Let the airline and airport figure out a spot to hold the passengers if it’s an issue of immigration clearance.
In any case, I hope the pax all get a nice settlement from the inevitable lawsuit – it’s the only way airlines will learn to have robust contingency plans in place.