A transatlantic flight of American Airlines bound for Naples, Italy, was forced to turn to Rome after the airline sent an air too large for the planned airport, which made the passengers bus for two hours to their final destination.
Flight 780 left Philadelphia on Monday evening at 7:42 p.m. local time, scheduled in Naples at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. However, just 70 miles from its destination, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner has moved away from the city of southern Italy and turned north to Rome Fimicino airport, landing around 9:45 am.
American Airlines attributed the diversion to “operational limitations”. The flight data examined by the Flightradar24 aviation monitoring service confirm that the plane involved was a Boeing 787-9, a generally longer variant than the Boeing 787-8, which generally serves the route.
While the two planes share similar wings, the 787-9 is 20 feet more and, above all, requires a higher category of emergency services to be pending during landing. According to the standards established by Boeing and the International Civil Aviation Organization, the 787-9 requires a rescue and fire-fighting service (RFFS), while Naples International Airport provides category 8-sufficient only for smaller large bodies like the 787-8.
The aviation enthusiast and the commentator @xjonnyc first drew attention to the incident on the X social media platform, citing airport sources that have confirmed that the greatest variant 787-9 is not allowed to land in Naples.
After landing safely in Rome, passengers were transferred to Naples by bus – a trip of around 145 miles which takes more than two hours by road. American Airlines has apologized, declaring: “We apologize to our customers for this disturbance of their trip.”
The diverted plane later left Rome for Chicago as flight 111, resuming its transatlantic operations.
The incident marks the second time this week that the passengers were released by bus after the flight diversion. In a separate case on Wednesday, a Ryanair flight to Europe turned away due to turbulence caused by a storm, with passengers transferred by road from Memmingen, Germany, to Milan.
