British Airways i360 tower: 'irate' passengers left stranded in pod... days after attraction broke down mid-air

Irate: Customers were angry at staff after they were left stranded on the tower
Nick Burlin
Jamie Bullen12 September 2016

Visitors to the British Airways i360 tower in Brighton told how they were trapped in a pod for more than an hour after an apparent fault – three days after it broke down mid-air.

Dozens of passengers were reportedly trapped after a “sensor fault” caused the attraction to break down after it rose only a few centimetres.

British Airways i360 said operations were due to resume on Monday while the fault is repaired.

The latest incident comes just days after dozens of people were left stranded for more than two hours after a “slight technical hitch” caused the pod to halt mid-air.

Pictures on social media show engineers working at the tower and customers queuing for refunds as some people hit out at operators over the problems.

Teething problems: An engineer works at the tower after a second fault in three days
Nick Burlin

Londoner Nick Burlin, 38, was among those who bought tickets for the ride, which was due to rise at 5.20pm.

The IT support worker, from Kingston, told the Standard: “The whole thing was a bit of a debacle.

“Nothing happened for about 15-20 minutes and then they announced there was this faulty and a man with a drill appeared.

Emergency loo: A tent was put up near the bar as a mobile toilet for passengers
Nick Burlin

“There was a complete lack of communication. After about half-an-hour people started to get irate and you can hear people getting frustrated with the staff.

“We eventually got out after an hour and 10 minutes and then had to queue 20 minutes to get our refunds.

We want our money back: Passengers queue for refunds after they were stuck on the i360 tower
Ian Hope

“If it had of gone on any longer the atmosphere would have been positively toxic.

“We were really looking forward to sampling some of the panoramic views of Brighton but we didn’t even get off the ground.”

Mr Burlin said staff decided to erect a camping tent to be used as an emergency toilet while customers waited to leave.

He added: “They decided to set up a mobile toilet next to the bar which looked like an emergency camping loo.”

A British Airways i360 spokesperson said: “British Airways i360 was affected by a technical fault this evening. Passengers disembarked and our on-site engineers are correcting the fault to enable operations to resume tomorrow.

"We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to customers and will offer those affected a full refund for their visit and a complimentary ticket to return another time.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in