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 statement to blogTO, the airline confirmed that the flight was diverted to Keflavik International Airport in order to offload a passenger who needed urgent medical attention.  

"The captain of the flight made the decision in order to observe the statutory requirements on crew operation and rest hours set by the HKCAD, as the remaining crew hours would not have allowed the flight to make it to Hong Kong," the airline said. 

 "Our local team in Toronto duly arranged hotel accommodation with meal and transportation for our customers as appropriate. The flight departed from Toronto at 15:45 local time on 3 January with another set of operating crew. Safety guides every decision we make. We sincerely apologize to the affected customers for the inconvenience."

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.