SAA flight delayed by a day
London - An SAA flight that took off from Heathrow in England on Saturday night had to hurry back there after a crack was seen in the cockpit windscreen.
The SAA flight to Johannesburg left Heathrow at 21:30 without any problems, but had to return from near Barcelona after two hours after a crack was discovered in the windscreen.
Linsey Cook, former wife of cricket player Jimmy Cook, said on Sunday: "The captain announced that there was a crack in the windscreen and that we would have to return to London."
Passengers could hear from the captain's tone that it was a problem he regarded as serious.
Cook, who was flying business class in the Boeing 747-400, said flight staff did their best to calm down passengers and to provide as much information as possible.
"A few people were upset but most remained calm and the staff went out of their way to put us at ease," she said.
Cook said SAA also went to a lot of trouble to accommodate people who had missed connecting flights from Johannesburg, and tried to get them on to other flights to their destinations.
No drop in air pressure
For instance, the airline helped a friend of Cook's, who was to have left for the US shortly after landing at Johannesburg, to reach his destination on time.
Jacqui O'Sullivan, SAA's spokesperson, said it was not clear what had caused the windscreen to crack, but the aircraft would have been able to complete the flight despite it.
The captain, however, decided rather to return to London.
"The crack could have been caused by anything, most probably environmental factors. There was never a drop in air pressure inside the cabin," she said.
O'Sullivan added that cracks in the windscreen were not uncommon and did not place aircraft in direct danger.
Passengers on the flight were staying in Park Inn Hotel near Heathrow, and were to have left for Johannesburg at 17:00 on Sunday.
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