A Qantas flight travelling from Sydney to Johannesburg, South Africa has had to turn back due to a fault.

The hiccup occurred on Tuesday when the flight, which departed shortly after 10am was forced to turn back about four hours into the trip, when it was south of Tasmania.

More than 400 passengers were on-board the flight, which generally has a journey length of about 14 hours.

A Qantas spokesman told Newswire the fault was with the satellite communications, which are of paramount importance when travelling over large bodies of water.

Emergency calls were not made by the flight.

The engineering team has been reviewing the A380 to determine what caused the fault.

All 410 passengers were offered accommodation for the night with the expectation they would make the trip to Johannesburg

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