Qantas Jet Takes 15-Hour Flight to Nowhere Due to Mideast Crisis

Passengers aboard a Paris-bound Qantas Airways Ltd. flight spent more than 15 hours in the air only to find themselves back where they started from in Australia after an Iranian missile attack shut down swathes of Middle East airspace.

The Boeing Co. 787 jet departed Perth for the usual 17-hour haul to Paris at 7.35 p.m. local time Monday. It made it as far as the south-west fringes of Indian airspace when the airline was told about the missile attack, forcing it to turn around. The plane landed safely back in the Western Australian capital around 11 a.m. Tuesday.