The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam on Thursday said that a Vietnam Airlines plane was asked to circle for a full 55 minutes over Guangzhou Province in China by the local air traffic control station.
After two hours of take off from Hanoi on January 15, flight VN416 reached Guangzhou airspace, where air traffic control refused to give it landing orders for a full 55 minutes, during which time the aircraft continued to circle the airspace.
Chinese air traffic controllers later attributed the reason for the delay to unsafe conditions on ground.
The lengthy delay caused the plane to run out of fuel, and unable to continue its journey to Seoul, it made a forced landing at Shanghai Airport. This further delayed its schedule by several hours.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has asked for an explanation from its counterpart department in China as to the cause of the delay.
