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United Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport. Photo: AFP

Update | United Airlines flight bound for Hong Kong ‘short of fuel’ and makes emergency U-turn back to San Francisco

Plane lands safely in San Francisco, but United Airlines silent on many details of the emergency

A United Airlines flight bound for Hong Kong was delayed for over a day after making an emergency U-turn back to San Francisco on Sunday, due to what the airline described as “questions about fuel over-burn”.

A flight tracking site showed UA flight 869 departed from San Francisco airport at 8.37pm local time on Saturday (11.37am on Sunday in Hong Kong) but turned back when it reached the Gulf of Alaska. It landed at San Francisco four hours and 20 minutes after its departure.

The flight did not take off again until 3.08pm PDT on Sunday (6.08am HKT yesterday), according to San Francisco airport's website.

Hong Kong airport's website showed the plane arrived here at 8.36pm yesterday, more than a day after its original scheduled arrival time.

No one was injured in the incident.

Karen May, public relations manager for United Airlines, said the plane was a Boeing 747 with 359 passengers on board. She said the plane returned due to “questions about fuel over-burn”.

“The flight was properly fuelled for its trip to Hong Kong,” she said. “United provided extra staff in San Francisco to meet and assist returning customers.”

She said the airline had offered food and beverages and scheduled a new flight which had arrived in Hong Kong. She added the airline had been offering passengers a choice of compensation of either a travel certificate or miles for the airline’s MileagePlus loyalty programme.

She did not comment on how many people from Hong Kong and mainland China were on board.

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Emergency crews stood by to inspect the aircraft for a fuel leak, according to an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report, citing audio from San Francisco airport's control tower.

Passenger Marcelo Figueroa reportedly said the pilot told passengers there was a fuel problem.

"Apparently the plane was using more fuel than usual and they were not sure if we were going to make it all the way to Hong Kong, so they decided to go back," Figueroa was quoted as saying.

Figueroa also vented his anger on Twitter, posting a picture showing two packs of Oreo biscuits and what appeared to be a travel bag. "Enjoy the six-hour delay. Thanks," he wrote.

“Enjoy the six-hour delay. Thanks,” he wrote in the tweet.

The report also cited a translator as saying a group of Chinese nationals only received a US$20 voucher each for food and were not provided a hotel for the delay.

The translator said they were re-booked on a Sunday evening flight and that if they had stayed beyond Sunday, when their travel visas were due to expire, they would have been present in the US illegally.

Warren Chim Wing-nin of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers said it was unusual for a plane to run out of fuel only hours into a 14-hour flight.

He said apart from a fuel leak, other possible causes might include problems with readings in the fuel system, if what Figueroa described was accurate.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: 'Fuel shortage' blamed forHK-bound flight's U-turn
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