A plane from New Zealand has been forced to make a u-turn mid-flight after a power outage at JKF airport, causing chaos for travelers on bringing many international flights to a standstill.
Electrical issues and a fire caused a terminal in New York City‘s John F. Kennedy International Airport to close on Friday causing disruption across air travel.
Both inbound and outbound flights were affected, the airport said in a tweet, disrupting activity at one of the world’s busiest airports.
One of the affected planes was a 16-hour Air New Zealand flight that was forced to turn around and head back to Auckland.
Many passengers onboard the long-haul flight described their shock and bemusement after realizing they were heading back and not making their way to New York.
Electrical issues and a fire caused a terminal in New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to closed on Friday
Flight NZ2 left Auckland on Thursday night, before turning around eight hours later and landing back again at 1pm local time on Friday afternoon.
A spokesperson for the Kiwi airline said: ‘Diverting to another US port would have meant the aircraft would remain on the ground for several days, impacting a number of other scheduled services and customers.’
New Zealand air added: ‘We apologize for the inconvenience and thank our customers for their patience and understanding.’
Some 130 flights are believed to have been cancelled since Thursday, according to FlightAware.com.
‘Travelers should check with their carriers for flight status before coming to the airport,’ JFK said.
The Port Authority is continuing to work with the terminal’s operator to restore flight operations as quickly as possible, it added.
JFK was working to accommodate affected flights using other terminals after the power outage began on Thursday.
Some flights scheduled to arrive at JFK were diverted to other airports on the East Coast, the airport’s website showed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk