The fourth day of Prince William and Duchess Kate of Cambridge’s tour began with cricket and a visit to an orphanage and a historic mosque in Lahore, but ended with a thunderstorm that prevented their plane from returning late to Islamabad on Thursday. 

The Royal couple, travelling on an RAF Voyager plane, left Lahore, the country’s” city of culture, ” according to Kensington Palace, in the evening but encountered a storm as it tried to land in Islamabad, where they had been staying since arriving for a five-day visit on Monday. 

“At one point, lightning was visible over the right wing as the plane crashed and flipped from side to side over stormy Islamabad,” according to People magazine, which carried the journalist.

“Despite the pilot’s best efforts to land the RAF Voyager at two different airports, the aircraft was forced to turn back to Lahore. The flight was supposed to take about 25 minutes, but the plane was in the air for two hours.”

Emma Louise Bowden, A British press Association reporter on the plane, tweeted the video clip. 

“These big flashes of RAF Voyager carrying William, Kate and travel media going through coverage-two aborted landings in Islamabad because of the storm and we’re back in Lahore,” she posted.

Kensington Palace did not return a message from the US TODAY seeking confirmation. Pakistan is nine hours ahead of us Eastern time 

Beyond that, it was a busy day for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Lahore, where they visited an orphanage and hospital, played cricket at the National cricket Academy (Pakistanis are crazy about cricket), and visited the historic, 17th-century Mughal-era badshahi mosque, the most iconic Islamic site in Lahore’s Old city, known as the walled City. 

They also visited the children’s ward at the free Shaukat Khanum cancer hospital, founded by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in honour of his late mother, and visited his friend and William’s mother, the late Princess Diana, in 1996 and 1997.

And Kate gave a speech at SOS children’s village which was mostly in English but included some remarks in Urdu. 

“Earlier this year, I talked about him taking a decision to raise a child,” Kate said, echoing former first lady Hillary Clinton’s book title in 1996. “The village we saw here today is the best representation of the ideal I could imagine.”

She changed from beige suede heels to canvas tennis shoes to show off her cricket skills on the field. The couple received cricket bats as gifts for their three children, Prince George, 6, Princess Charlotte, 4, and Prince Louis, 1, although the toddler is smaller than a bat.

Later, for a visit to the mosque, Kate changed into another traditional outfit with a gold embroidered tunic and trousers in blue and green and a matching scarf draped over her head and over her shoulder.

As usual, both will and Kate had taken off their shoes at the entrance and were sitting on tapestry cushions on the carpeted floor.    

The Badshahi mosque, built in the 1670s, is the second largest mosque in Pakistan and an important example of Mughal architecture, with an impressive entrance and exterior of carved red Sandstone with marble inlay.

Kensington Palace said in a tweet that they visited the mosque and courtyard before joining discussions with religious leaders to learn how they promote interfaith harmony in their communities.