Imagine you are cruising through your 17-hour flight from Perth, Australia to Paris, France. It’s an uncomfortably long haul, but you know it will be worth the wait. You eat a good meal and try to get some sleep. Then in the middle of the night the Captain clicks on the intercom to tell you he’s pulling a U-Turn.

This was exactly the hassle 216 passengers suffered through in Qantas Airlines Flight 33 on June 24th. After enduring half their direct flight to Paris, they had to turn around. Instead of a 17-hour transcontinental flight, they ended up sitting through a 15-hour loop back home to Perth.

With now Wi-Fi on the flight, they didn’t even know why they’d turned around. Queensland resident Naomi Nettleton revealed that the Captain just said the airspace above Qatar was closed. “We know that the airspace was blocked, and that’s all that we know.”

The lack of information frustrated another passenger, named Leon. “It would have been nice to know a bit more about what’s going on, like it turned out, I think just the airspace is closed, but it could have been a lot more serious about than that.”

Qantas flight 33 avoided Iranian missiles launched at Qatar

The passengers had the misfortune of flying across the Gulf of Oman on the night Iran decided to strike a U.S. airbase in Qatar with a barrage of missiles. Qatar was able to intercept many of the missiles, but closed its airspace to any airplanes for security purposes.

With so much airspace over the Persian Gulf closed, Qantas 33 had no good route to Paris. Diverting East would have meant passing over Iran or even Afghanistan. Diverting West would have meant flying over Iraq or Syria. So the Captain chose to turn around and fly home to Australia.

The airline put the passengers up and offered them tickets on the next day’s flight to Paris. Passenger Will Berline said, “The crew took great care of us. They’re putting us up in a hotel, and then we’re flying out again.” He concluded, “How inconvenient, but better to be alive.”