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[UPDATED on Sunday, Sep. 11 at 7pm: The article was updated to include the response from the SIA spokesperson. He said, "The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."]
A Singapore Airlines (SIA) flight from Paris to Singapore was diverted to Baku, Azerbaijan after an oil leak was detected in one of the plane's engines.
The affected flight, SQ333, took off from the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport on Sep. 8.
The SIA spokesperson told Mothership that the 229 passengers and 18 crew members on the flight disembarked normally.
The airline had earlier cited "technical issues" which led to the diversion, but later confirmed that there was an oil leak, according to The Straits Times (ST).
Flight tracking site Flightradar24 showed the path SQ333 took.
Screenshot from Flightradar24
Disgruntled passenger takes to Facebook group to complain
A Facebook user by the name of Yann le Berre, who claims to have been on the flight, posted on group Complaint Singapore about his experience.
Berre called it a "horrible adventure", alleging that they landed in Baku at 5am on Sep. 9 and was left in the airport until 8pm. He has also branded SIA's management of the situation "inadmissible and completely unprofessional".
He claims to have been told that the relief flight would be at 10am on Sep. 10, but it was later changed to 7:30pm.
As he was scheduled to take a connecting flight from Singapore to Sydney, he says he was offered to be re-accomodated onto a flight which would depart from Changi at 7:30pm on Sep. 11.
Berre has asked for SIA to provide a refund of the visa he had to pay for on arrival in Azerbaijan, along with compensation for the "loss of income" after spending "four days in airports".
Slightly different account
Another passenger, who asked to only be identified by his surname Tung, had a different version of events to tell Mothership.
He shared that the passengers remained in the plane for about six hours after landing, during which the captain made "several announcements" about having to check on the plane's left engine.
Cabin crew apparently told passengers that it "would be unlikely" that the plane would continue on its journey even if the engine was fixed.
As Baku is not on SIA's usual routes, passengers were told that a relief plane would have to be flown in.
They disembarked and were taken to the passenger terminal via shuttle at approximately 12:35pm.
Visa woes
Passengers then had to apply for visas.
According to the Azerbaijan electronic visa portal, citizens of countries eligible for an e-Visa cannot apply for a visa upon arrival, and should submit their application at least three working days before their planned travel date.
Singapore is on the list of eligible countries.
Tung said passengers first waited in a corridor before being brought to another waiting area.
At 1:30pm, they were told that their relief flight would depart Baku the next day at 10am, which meant that they would have to spend the night in the city.
Although they were originally told that Singaporeans would not require a visa, staff quickly confirmed otherwise.
Passengers were asked to apply on the e-Visa application website, but were told not to make payment of about USD30 as the sum would be covered.
However, the card which was supposed to be used to process the applications "was in some other office somewhere" and passengers were told that they had to process the visas in another way.
While this was going on, Tung noted that cabin crew passed out sandwiches, water and juice to the passengers.
They were then brought to an area with visa application booths.
Tung recounted:
"There are five to six booths and basically one Azerbaijan staff with the credit card had to go around the booths one by one making payment and taking picture of the visa slip, not helped by the fact that the card didn't work half the time... So this took a really long time.
[...]
There were other issues like some passengers had gone off to look for food in a different floor of the airport and one lady had lost her passport in Paris."
Some passengers did not want to wait and paid for their visas in order to be able to head to their respective hotels sooner.
Ferried to hotel for the night
After clearing immigration and picking up their luggage, Tung, who was in business class, boarded a bus for the Marriott Boulevard Hotel.
They arrived at the hotel between 5:30pm and 6pm.
He said that a friend who was in economy class told him that they were put up at the Courtyard Marriott.
After check-in, passengers had a "simple dinner buffet" and heard that their relief flight would take off at "7:30" instead.
The initial confusion about whether the flight would take off in the morning or at night was quickly resolved by a confirmation text from SIA that the flight was scheduled for 7:30pm.
There were arrangements made for a bus to ferry the passengers back to the airport the next day for their flight.
"They did the best they could"
Tung opined that SIA, the cabin crew and pilots "handled themselves very professionally" and "did the best they could" given the situation.
He made special mention to the pilot for the "rapid but non-turbulent descent" and "very smooth landing" at Baku.
Acknowledging that there will "undoubtedly" be a number of complaints about the wait time and confusion, he pointed out that the situation itself was atypical.
"To be fair, what is the "normal" process for a whole plane full of emergency passengers with no visas trying to enter your country?" he wrote.
Tung added, "Having never been in an airplane with an engine leak having to make an emergency landing prior to this, frankly the main thing is we are alive."
Relief flight scheduled to arrive on Sep. 11
A check on Changi Airport's arrivals page showed that the relief flight, SQ9333, is scheduled to land on Sep. 11 at 8:30am.
Screenshot from Changi Airport's website
Top photo from shawnanggg via Unsplash