Brand new Air New Zealand Airbus A321-271NX on delivery flight was force to turn back over Turkey because no clearance was obtained to fly over Iranian Airspace.
On 15 February 2019, The Flight NZ6093, from Airbus production facility in Hamburg, Germany to Auckland, via Oman, Kuala Lumpur and Cairns, made U-Turn above Erzincan in Turkey after nearly four hours into its journey. The plane returned to Hamburg.
Air New Zealand says because of a delay in delivery, and was on tight schedule, the aircraft left Hamburg before clearance paperwork had been received to overfly Iran.
‘We had received assurances by our delivery flight planning agent that the Iranian clearance paperwork would come through during the flight. Unfortunately this was not received in time and the decision was made to return to Hamburg,” a spokeswoman said.
This is the second incident after Flight NZ289 carrying about 270 passengers left Auckland on 10 Feb, to Shanghai turned back several hours into its journey after discovering it did not have permission to land in China.
Air New Zealand called the incident, “unfortunate” but “not uncommon”.
Source : News-in-Flight
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