Toronto flight forced to land in Iceland after emergency on board

A Toronto flight was forced to cut its journey short last week after a passenger suffered a medical emergency on board. 

On Jan. 2, a long-haul Cathay Pacific flight departed from Toronto Pearson International Airport at approximately 12:30 a.m. and was headed for Hong Kong International Airport. 

The roughly 15-hour flight is one of the longest flights out of Pearson Airport, just behind Philippines Airlines’ flight to Manila and EVA Air/Air Canada’s flight to Tapei at 12,615 kilometres.

While flying over Greenland, the crew was forced to divert to Reykjavik Keflavik International Airport (KEF) after a passenger suffered a medical emergency on board. The flight landed safely in Iceland approximately seven hours after taking off from Pearson Airport. 

In a message to a concerned customer on X, the airline acknowledged that the aircraft was due to return to Toronto after rerouting to Iceland. After offloading the passenger, the aircraft returned and landed back at Pearson Airport at approximately 4 p.m. local time. 

We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Upon checking, the flight has been rerouted from Toronto to Iceland and is now returning to Toronto.

If you need further assistance, please feel free to contact us via direct message.

Our team will reply you shortly.

— Cathay Pacific (@cathaypacific) January 2, 2025

The next day, the aircraft made its second attempt at the long-haul flight and successfully landed in Hong Kong over 15 hours later. 

blogTO has reached out to Cathay Pacific for more information about the incident.