Passengers on board a hovercraft crossing between Southsea and Ryde were forced to walk across wet sand after a mechanical breakdown meant the craft couldn’t land at the Ryde terminal yesterday evening (Wednesday).
The 18:30 service from Southsea left as normal, but halfway into the journey a problem developed, leaving the craft with limited capabilities and struggling against the tide and wind.
It took around 30 minutes for Island Flyer to reach Ryde, however, efforts to make it up the pad as normal were abandoned. As a result, passengers were left with no option but to walk across the wet sand with some removing their shoes.
It is the second time in the past 3 weeks that this has happened to Island Flyer.
The craft was at sea for around 2 hours before making a third attempt at heading into Ryde shortly before 20:30, finally making it up the pad – albeit with some difficulty. In the meantime, Solent Flyer kept the service running.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Hovertravel has said:
“Following the 1830 departure from Southsea, our Island Flyer hovercraft had a technical issue and when landing at Ryde the craft stopped short of the pad.
“All passengers disembarked safely and were helped with their luggage and Hovertravel apologises for any inconvenience caused.
Article continues below this advertisement “The service continued to operate on time. The pilot and engineers moved the craft and are investigating the issue with Island Flyer which is now back on the pad at Ryde.
With the amount of money both Red Funnel and Wighlink make from overcharging customers you’d think they would get these issues sorted.
It was Hovertravel that was affected not Wightlink or Red Funnel????
what an idiot!
Does your care working know you using the computer again ‘Mr Sands’???
I did feel sorry for the passengers as the hover tried to land in Ryde, couldn’t, then went back to Southsea albeit slowly, couldn’t land there while trying to miss the tankers, span round a few times in the middle of the Solent, as well as stopping a few times too, it then limped back to Ryde. The hovercraft did have an opportunity to disembark passengers when it neared Ryde the first time, but it turned and went back out to sea. 2+ hours is a long time on a hover that’s not really getting anywhere. Hope those passengers got some sort of compensation
You can’t park there mate
Maybe they should stop call the crossing a flight and not trying to make it fly as it never will and you will break it
For crying out loud, over the years I’ve had to walk across the scary wet sand! Ffs we live on an Island keep your wellies handy
It’s about time hovertravel sort this out the flyers are clearly not capable of surviving more than a week in solent without some sort of failure