by Donald Wood
Last updated: 5:49 PM ET, Mon August 3, 2015
Photo via Twitter/nhb8ja801a
A China Southern Airlines plane en route to London was forced to make an emergency landing in Amsterdam after reportedly running out of fuel.
A report from John Hutchinson of the Daily Mail explains that China Southern Flight CZ303 departed from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport at 9:30 a.m. local time, but was forced to make a diversion around an area of air space being used for Chinese military operations.
It was the detour in China that is suspected to be the root cause of the prematurely empty fuel tanks and the subsequent emergency landing.
Instead of landing at London's Heathrow Airport as scheduled, the Boeing B788 Dreamliner was diverted to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in the Netherlands, landing safely around 2:30 p.m. local time.
The plane touched down in Amsterdam an hour before it was scheduled to arrive in London.
The Daily Mail reached out to China Southern Airlines, but did not receive any comment from the company. Airlive.net first reported on the incident, via Twitter:
As wild as this emergency landing was for the passengers, it wasn't the first fuel-related diversion of the last two weeks. In late July, TravelPulse's Rich Thomaselli reported that an Allegiant Air flight was forced to land at Hector International Airport in Fargo, North Dakota, after almost running out of fuel.
In that case, air traffic controllers informed the Allegiant Air pilot that the airport was closed, but the lack of fuel forced the facility to make room for the passenger aircraft.
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