About 185 Norwegians and Danes got a bit more than the trip they booked, when their Thai Airways flight TG 952 performed an emergency landing in Moscow on 11 August 2019. The emergency was due to an oil spill and fire fighters were ready, as soon as the air craft had landed.
The flight was scheduled to land in Copenhagen at 19.40 local time, but just under two hours before scheduled touchdown the flight had to turn around and land in Moscow Domodedovo International Airport.
According to the Danish news site Ekstra Bladet’s source, Michael Dueholm, the flight staff were aware of the oil spill bore take-off.
“At arrival (in Moscow, ed.) the fuel was leaking unto the runway. And we were already delayed at take-off because the staff had to check the engine,” he wrote to Ekstra Bladet.
According the flight tracking site Flight Aware, the flight was more than 45 minutes delayed, when it departed at 13.46 local time Sunday.
Stranded at airport
Upon arrival at the airport in Moscow the passengers were left in the aircraft for two hours before being allowed to exit the plane.
But it didn’t make much of a difference for the passengers, who were not allowed to leave the airport, as they didn’t have a Russian visa. This includes checking in to an airport hotel, as you would have to leave the airport in order to do so.
Instead, the passengers had to wait at the airport with sporadic information updates.
They were told, that they had to wait for spare parts so the plane could be repaired, and they could get back on the very same plane to continue their journey.
The latest update passengers have posted about was that the flight was scheduled for departure at 5.30 A.M. on 13 August 2019 Thai time. About 30 hours after they were due to land in Copenhagen.
However, Copenhagen Airport has no reports on the flight landing, and Flight Aware doesn’t have any updates either.
ScandAsia has not succeeded in getting in contact with passengers.
Ekstra Bladet has tried to get a comment from Thai Airways, but they didn’t have any luck either.
The passengers were later returned to Copenhagen airport where they landed at 5.25 am local time Tuesday morning.