British Airways: Flight to Chicago U-turns back to Heathrow Airport over 'engine problem'

A British Airways plane U-turned back to a UK airport due to “engine problems”. The incident occurred on Wednesday (28 February) as the Boeing 787 flight from London’s Heathrow Airport was bound for Chicago.

The flight had to turn back to Heathrow Airport “two hours” into the flight. The aircraft departed London Heathrow at 4.56pm on Wednesday and was due to arrive in Chicago at 7.26pm local time. 

FlightEmergency posted on X, formerly Twitter: “British Airways flight BA297 is going back to Heathrow after two hours of flight due to engine problems.” A user, called @Shauns_Aviation, responded to the post on X stating that the flight “requested an early descent to burn fuel”. Another user replied to the post saying: “Engine problems!- hope they are all ok.”

A British Airways spokesperson said: “Safety is always our highest priority and the aircraft returned to London due to a minor technical issue, where it landed normally. We’ve apologised to customers for the disruption to their travel plans and our teams worked to get them to their destination as soon as possible.”

It comes after A British Airways flight travelling from Kuwait City struggled to land at Heathrow Airport on Monday (26 February) due to high winds. A video shared on the social media platform X showed the aircraft making a bumpy landing on the runway before aborting and flying off again. 

One user reacted to the post saying “I fear ever experiencing a scary go around” while another said aborting the landing was “a good decision, just should have made it sooner”. James Johnson posted on X: “I certainly wouldn’t fancy being a passenger on this flight”.