When passengers boarded Cathay Pacific flight 883 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on 4 August, they knew it was a long flight averaging 13.5 hours. What they didn’t know is that they would end up spending more than twice that amount of time onboard the aircraft before the journey was over.
Black warning
CX883 departed Los Angeles at 07:55 UTC on 4 August, making its way west across the Pacific for 13 hours before beginning its approach to Hong Kong. By the time the aircraft was near Hong Kong, the city was under a Black warning, meaning more than 70 mm of rain is expected to fall each hour.
The flight held near Hong Kong and then diverted to Taipei to wait out the weather. CX883 landed in Taipei 15 hours 33 minutes after departing Los Angeles.
Now, we wait
To this point, there is nothing unusual about the flight, as weather diversions happen on a regular basis and Taipei is often used by Cathay when landing in Hong Kong is not possible.
What makes this story unusual is that the passengers of CX883 were kept on the aircraft at a remote stand and not allowed to disembark. The aircraft parked at the remote stand on the north side of the airfield at 23:32 UTC. At some point, the plane was moved to a different remote stand on the south side of the airfield. The airline has not publicly confirmed why passengers were kept on the aircraft.
Finally time to go
The weather in Hong Kong finally cleared and a relief crew operated the flight back to Hong Kong, departing Taipei at 10:00 UTC the following day after ten and a half hours on the ground.
The flight to Hong Kong this time was without incident and the aircraft touched down at 11:27 UTC, nearly 28 hours after departing Los Angeles.
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