A light 10 knot breeze amidst sunny skies and fine weather delayed a Qantas Boeing 747-400 flying from Brisbane, Australia to Los Angeles for about three hours in a rather unusual holdup

The unusual situation was due to tail winds on both of both of Brisbane’s runways which meant the aircraft would have been too heavy for QF flight 15 to take-off with the length of runway.

Passengers who had already boarded the flight were scheduled to depart at 11:05am but were forced to deplane and return to the terminal.

A Qantas spokesman said the airline began preparing to remove some of the aircraft’s freight but the wind subsided to allow passengers to board the aircraft again.

The flight departed shortly after 2pm with 407 passengers on board.