New Air NZ plane forced to turn back

A new Air New Zealand Airbus plane on a delivery flight from Hamburg did a U-turn approaching the Iranian border and returned to the German city because of a paperwork problem.

The turnaround of the A321neo came after clearance to fly over Iran didn’t come through as expected.

Problems with the flight on February 15 came just days after a China-bound Air New Zealand Dreamliner turned back to Auckland — that too was apparently because of a paperwork problem.

Flight NZ6093 was nearly four hours into its journey when it did a 180-turn while travelling at 39,000 feet above Erzincan in Turkey. It returned to Hamburg, one of two European sites where the narrow-body planes are assembled.

Air New Zealand said because of a 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 . . . scenarios of this nature are not uncommon,” a spokeswoman said last night.

The aircraft has since departed Hamburg and is expected to arrive in Auckland late tomorrow evening after stopping in Oman, Kuala Lumpur and Cairns.

Routine ferry flights have no passengers and typically just a roster of pilots and a handful of other airline staff on board.