A British Airways flight heading for Portugal turned back to London Gatwick on Tuesday after what a flight data provider described as a cracked passenger window, an incident the airline characterised as a minor technical issue.
The service, BA2660, was bound for Faro in the Algarve and had been flying towards the destination when it altered course over north-western France and set a return path to Gatwick, according to the flight data provider AirNav Radar.
AirNav Radar said in a post on X that a passenger window had cracked and that the flight deck was running checks before deciding where to divert.
The provider also reported that the aircraft, a British Airways Airbus A321, squawked the 7700 emergency code. That code is used when mechanical or technical problems arise on board an aircraft.
A British Airways spokesperson said the plane landed safely at Gatwick because of a minor technical issue, and that passengers were due to resume their journeys. The airline apologised to customers for the delay and said its teams were working to get travel plans back on track.
The diversion came a week after another British Airways flight, this one bound for Chicago, spent five hours circling over Ireland before turning back and landing at London Heathrow, the airport from which it had taken off. An emergency alert was issued on that service, passengers reported oxygen masks dropping in the cabin along with turbulence, and tracking data showed the aircraft descending rapidly from 37,000 feet to 9,000 feet.
In August, Serbian national Ljubisa Karović had his head and right shoulder pulled through a window on a Ryanair flight, an incident that left him seriously injured and in shock, according to the source account. Ryanair subsequently said the window may have been damaged by a foreign object.
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