Robert Smith/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- A Swiss International Airlines flight to Miami landed back in Zurich after a four-hour journey.
- The Airbus A340 had "an irregularity with an engine," the airline said.
- The flight changed directions a couple of times over the ocean before circling Zurich for an hour.
Passengers expecting to travel transatlantic ended up on a four-hour flight-to-nowhere.
Swiss International Airlines Flight 64 on Monday was supposed to be a 10-hour journey from Zurich to Miami.
Passengers were already in for some disruption as it departed around an hour later than scheduled, per data from Flightradar24.
Things went smoothly until an hour and a half into the journey, when the Airbus A340 started to turn around.
The plane had not long started flying over the Atlantic Ocean before deciding to head back.
It appeared to be going toward Switzerland, then turned toward Spain, before returning to its original path.
After three hours in the air, the A340 was back in Swiss airspace. However, it then had to circle around Zurich a few times before it could land.
An airline spokesperson told Business Insider that the plane returned due to "an irregularity with an engine."
The four-engined plane involved in the incident, HB-JMH, is 21 years old.
"As a precautionary measure, the crew decided to return to the home airport in Zurich, where we have the best maintenance facilities," they added.
This is often the case in so-called flights to nowhere, where returning to a hub airport also makes it easier to re-route passengers. Those on the Swiss flight were rebooked on the fastest possible alternatives.
"We regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers," the airline spokesperson said.
Similar incidents have seen flights as long as 10 hours before returning to their original take-off point.
For example, last November, a British Airways flight U-turned when it was halfway across the Atlantic.
And after a plane crash at Toronto Airport in February, two transatlantic flights to nowhere were among dozens of planes that diverted.