Posted on 08/07/2025 4:23:32 AM PDT by C19fan
Passengers aboard a Cathay Pacific flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong endured a nightmare journey that may have just broken the record for the world's longest commercial flight - but not in distance.
Flight CX883 took off from LAX at 12:55 am on August 4 with nearly 300 passengers onboard, expecting a 13-hour transpacific trip.
But a freak weather event over Hong Kong turned the flight into a 29-hour ordeal in the sky - and on the tarmac.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“....a 13 Hour Tour.....a 13 Hour Tour!”
is a black storm like an atmospheric river or a bomb cyclone?
probably caused by secret chicom cloud seeding
Don’t know, but 13.5 inches of rain in 3 hours is a lot..
“29-hour ordeal in the sky - and on the tarmac.”
I’ve done longer.
Mil Air Charter.
4 hours Korea to Japan.
6 hours on the tarmac in Japan (Fuel leak) no deboarding.
10 hours Japan to Fairbanks. Diverted due to volcano.
6 hours on tarmac to service aircraft no deboarding.
7 hours Alaska to Alabama.
33 hours total time on aircraft.
Then there was the 6 hour bus ride to north alabama.
It also took 8 hours to board the aircraft in Korea. (train ride plus flat tire on aircraft).
Something like 48 hours total travel time.
We need to start diverting all aircraft coming out of China. They are sending too much sickness and death to America. It’s time to stop.
You beat me by an hour: 32 hours Guangzhou to Washington DC, transiting through LAX and Chicago.
A direct flight is 13 hours. We were flying immediately post covid shutdowns. Most international flights to China had not restarted and connections were terrible. Chinese airports still looked post apocalyptic with moonsuited security people at all gates doing temperature checks, and if you had a fever, you were immediately quarantined. We dodged that bullet in a half a dozen provincial cities where a quarantine might have been adventurous; we were all popping asperin and tylenol like mad to reduce fever, as travel fevers come with the territory on long trips.
In our case, most of the delays were very long layovers in Hong Kong and LAX, plus a shorter layover in Chicago. Couldn’t leave the airports.
All I can say for spending the night in a transit lounge is that it beats sleeping on a bench in 30th St. Station in Philly and on the floor in Penn Station in New York, both in the late 70’s, because I had missed the last train for the night. In Philly, a police officer roused me in the wee hours and told me that if I wanted to wake up alive in the morning, I should move to a different section of the terminal. At least China is civilized enough to police terminals.
Glad you (finally) ended up in the promised land :)
Took that exact flight 2 years ago instead of normal Houston to Taipei flight. Have never seen the sun in Taipei and found Hong Kong to be the same.
The headline made me think of The Langoliers.
A lot of westbound transatlantic flights were diverted to Gander Newfoundland after the Islamist attacks on Sept 11, 2001. It took well until the next morning to deplane all those passengers.
Wow! a black storm must have been spawned by a tropical vortex and accompanying high force derecho winds.
There was probably a firenado as well.
“”Then there was the 6 hour bus ride to north alabama.””
Sounds like a fast trip from Alaska to Alabama.
Again, corporate CEO incompetence. The solution is not processing them through customs OR keeping them on the plane. You are on an island, open the doors and let them walk around and get some fresh air. I would have gone psycho if stuck on plane that long, and heaven knows even at 150 million a copy retardineers cannot make an air conditioner work while on the tarmac. Every corporate manager should be fired and banned from the industry for 3 years. Every board member should be sued for voting for the leadership and everyone who could have let those people off the plane to just walk around should be arrested for kidnapping.
Alabama doesn’t have California’s scenery, but we don’t have a Ferdinand the Greasy vichy government either.
I spent 35 hours on a DC8 stretch from McCord AFB to Cairo in 85. Multiple stops but couldn’t get off.
It beats dying.
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