A British Airways plane flooded mid-flight after a trolley smashed into a water pipe

Passengers on a British Airways flight bound for London from Johannesburg experienced a soggy landing on Sunday, March 13, after a leakage caused flooding in the plane's cabin.

"A trolley knocked a water pipe and unfortunately it created a leak," a spokesperson for British Airways told Business Insider over email.

The broken water pipe sent water from the upper passenger deck through the cabin's ceiling and air conditioning system, according to the Evening Standard.

The incident occurred on BA Flight 56 an hour and a half before landing at Heathrow Airport, according to passenger Nicolas Gausserand, a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Toulouse, France, who was travelling back from a business trip in South Africa.

Gausserand said he "saw some water on the floor" just as he was waking up on the 11-hour flight.

"Passengers were confused and do not really understand what's happening," he told Business Insider over Twitter. There was "no panic at all but a loud atmosphere. Nobody was talking and we were waiting to land ASAP!"

But it took some time for the airline crew to inform passengers of the situation.

"We did not have any information," Gausserand said, adding that the pilot made an announcement around 15 minutes "before the end of the leak."

Flight attendants responded by covering the cabin floor with blankets and towels and deactivated electric systems around the seats, leaving passengers' reading lights on.

The Airbus 380 landed safely at Heathrow Airport at 5.25 a.m., and the plane was inspected upon arrival, with checks lasting up to 64 hours, according to the Evening Standard.

"We are sorry for any inconvenience caused to our customers, British Airways said in a statement. "There was no risk to the aircraft or customers on board."