Earlier this week, a TUI UK flight bound for Kefallinia made a u-turn back to London Gatwick due to a problem onboard the aircraft.
Information has been released pertinent to the incident at hand, which we will get into in this article.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
TUI Flight BY4218 – London Gatwick to Kefallinia…
TUI flight BY4218, which made the u-turn, is a routine scheduled flight between London Gatwick & Kefallinia.
Furthermore, the aircraft involved in the incident was G-TUKO.
As per data from Planespotters.net, G-TUKO is a 13.3 year old Boeing 737-800 that was delivered to the TUI Group back in June 2011.
It started out it’s life with the Nordic subsidiary, before doing a stint with the German subsidiary in May 2017.
In February 2021, it was handed over to the UK division of the airline.
Furthermore, of the 737-800, TUI UK have 33 units of the type in their fleet.
Within that 33, all of them are in active service, with an average fleet age of 13.1 years.
As well as the 737-800, the UK carrier has the following other aircraft in their mainline fleet:
2 Airbus A320s.
21 Boeing 737 MAX 8s.
13 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
TUI UK flight BY4218 departed London Gatwick at 0736 local time on August 27 and tracked east towards Kefallinia.
Over German airspace, the decision was made to u-turn back to the UK airport with a problem onboard.
The aircraft landed safely back into the airport at 1006 local time, after two hours and 30 minutes of flight.
As per The Aviation Herald, it is understood the reason for this u-turn was due to a cracked windshield in the cockpit.
Aircraft Returned To Commercial Service The Next Day…
Data from RadarBox highlights that G-TUKO, the TUI Boeing 737-800 that operated BY4218 London Gatwick-Kefallinia, was grounded until August 28.
After that, the aircraft re-entered commercial service, where no further issues have been reported with the aircraft.
Moreover, as soon as we get more information pertinent to this incident, then we will update you accordingly.
For now, this remains a developing story pending additional updates that may come through.