An airbus which spent about 40 minutes circling over the southern Illawarra on Sunday was forced to land back at Sydney just over an hour after it left.
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According to flight trackers, Flight PAL212/PR212 took off from Sydney airport bound for Manila at 1.06pm, an hour and a half after its scheduled departure.
The A340 then headed south, towards the Illawarra, and made at least five loops over the southern part of the region.
Residents said the plane was “flying low over the region”, while other plane spotters said the aircraft was flying with its landing gear down.
Its unusual flight path circled over Lake Illawarra, across the back of Dapto and around over the Southern Highlands before circling back around over Albion Park.
After 50 minutes in the air, it turned back for Sydney, landing just before 2.15pm.
A Sydney airport spokeswoman said the plane had elected to turn back to Sydney and had landed safely.
On Sunday afternoon, the Mercury attempted to find out from Philippine Airlines why the plane made the unusual loop, but was only told the airline was “still coordinating with concerned offices for reports”.
“Rest assured, assigned personnel will be readily available in assisting and working around the situation,” the airline said.