Australia-Bound Qantas Flight Floods, Returns to Los Angeles
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Scott Barbour/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — A Qantas flight heading from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia was forced to return to Los Angeles International Airport after a pipe burst, sending water running through the aircraft, according to airline officials and passengers.
Video captured on passengers’ cellphones shows water steadily pouring from the ceiling and flowing down the stairs and in the aisles of the double-decker Airbus A380.
The flight had departed Los Angeles at about 11:40 p.m. Tuesday for a planned 15-hour journey. It returned to LAX about an hour later.
Ken Cross described his fellow passengers’ reactions.
“People started jumping up and yelling because all of this water started coming down basically in the middle of the aircraft,” he told ABC News station KABC, adding: “Yeah, you couldn’t keep going for 15 hours like that.”
Passengers were put up at a hotel and other flight arrangements were made.
Community star Yvette Nicole Brown was among those on board. The actress tweeted: “River running through the aisles.”
The crew suspended food service and shut down the entertainment system, with a steward announcing to passengers: “Due to the lack of power, we have switched off for safety reasons…”
In a statement posted on its website, Qantas wrote that its onboard crew “did everything they could to help customers, including moving them to unaffected areas and providing spare blankets so they could stay dry.”
No one was hurt. The airline is still trying to determine the cause of the incident.
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