Malfunction Forces Qantas Flight Carrying Wimbledon Champion To Return To LAX

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A Qantas flight headed from Los Angeles to Brisbane overnight Tuesday – and carrying the No. 2 women's tennis player in the world -- was forced to turn back due to an issue with the plane's radar system.

Flight 16 departed LAX at 12:19 a.m. Wednesday, but was forced to turn around after pilots discovered the "weather radar system working incorrectly" on the Airbus A380, Qantas told CBS2 in an email.

The plane landed safely back at LAX at 3:12 a.m. Wednesday. All passengers were put up in a hotel, the airline said.

Aboard the flight was 2017 Wimbledon champion Garbiñe Muguruza, according to The Courier Mail newspaper. The 24-year-old Spaniard is headed to the Brisbane International, which begins this weekend. Muguruza is the No. 1 seed in the tournament.

Engineers fixed the error, and the plane finally took off from LAX at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. The more than 13-hour flight was scheduled to arrive in Brisbane at 7:15 a.m. Australian time Friday.

Muguruza was aboard the second flight, the Courier Mail reports.

This was the second LAX flight in two days forced to return to the airport. On Tuesday evening, a Nippon Airways flight bound for Tokyo returned to L.A. after it was discovered that an unauthorized passenger was aboard. A U.S. government official told CBS2 that two brothers booked on different flights somehow got on the same Tokyo-bound plane.