Flightradar is showing BA207 to Miami circling off the Cornish coast

[BreehyHinnyBrinnyHoohyHah]

The flight was from London to Miami but did a U-turn near Ireland and is now circling around the Cornish coast. Fuel dumping?

BA207 from London to Miami https://fr24.com/BAW207/30d32431

[GulesMeansRed]

Looks like they've left their holding pattern and heading for Heathrow.

[wonderstuff]

We once were on a plane that did this, heading to JFK from Heathrow and plane climate control was malfunctioning, it was hot then cold then hot again, pilot said it was probably nothing but with the small risk of cabin pressure being affected he didn’t want to cross the Atlantic so we turned around at Ireland then circled London for a couple hours before landing back at LHR.

Where they bumped everyone off another transatlantic flight that wasn’t full and loaded us on (as our flight was full) and took off again, think we ended up in NY about 4.5 hours late.

[PoseyFlump]

I feel for any anxious passengers.

[whatausername]

@Usernamenotavailab

According to Twitter it’s a standby system failure?

plane still perfectly able to fly but would have been grounded in Miami, presumably with it being BA they prefer it grounded here as access to their mechanics etc?

Ah that makes sense!

[JustLurkingAway]

Really feel for the people on the flight, can't imagine 5hrs going round and round is very nice!!

[loobylou10]

@drpet49 yet you opened the thread after reading the title - grow up.

[ThePoshUns]

I've found my people. I love FR .
@drpet49 bore off. Plenty of other threads to look at.

[wonderstuff]

@JustLurkingAway

Really feel for the people on the flight, can't imagine 5hrs going round and round is very nice!!

They’ll be feeding them all the food the plane has on board because it’s wasted otherwise, I’m sure it will be very frustrating though. When our plane did this we were only going to America for a long weekend, but actually they got us turned around pretty quickly and it wasn’t a disaster. Reassuring that pilots are so risk adverse.

[ErrolTheDragon]

They're not far off Heathrow now, looks like they're coming round to join the queue coming in from the east.

[Wellgoodforyou]

@ThePoshUns

I've found my people. I love FR .
@drpet49 bore off. Plenty of other threads to look at.

I am an absolute FR nerd ! I always track all friends and family flights 😊

[Wellgoodforyou]

Landed !

[QuintanaRoo]

Landed.

[ThePoshUns]

@Wellgoodforyou me too. A few years ago my son was travelling and I started then. I live on a flight path so often sit in my garden checking out what's flying over. Complete nerd

Good the BA flight has landed safely

[PupInAPram]

@drpet49

Who cares?

Everyone else reading the thread. How bizarre to open a thread, read it then take the time to bitch post on it!

[Wellgoodforyou]

@ThePoshUns

@Wellgoodforyou me too. A few years ago my son was travelling and I started then. I live on a flight path so often sit in my garden checking out what's flying over. Complete nerd

Good the BA flight has landed safely

Yes I do that ,we are on flight path for Gatwick and have even had my sons plane fly over our house . Really weird seeing the plane he is on ,out of bedroom window ! I took a screenshot and sent it to him 😂

[MissConductUS]

@GulesMeansRed

DH works for air traffic control and I'm always asking about a flight which has been diverted, or turned back or whatever. He just rolls his eyes, says it happens all the time and they don't pay extra attention to it.

For fellow FR geeks - this story is interesting. https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/air-india-russia-diversion/

Air India plane headed to San Francisco from Delhi, forced to divert over Russian airspace (India is one of the few countries still flying over Russia). Passengers evacuated the following day. But the plane is stuck there because of the sanctions - can't get a replacement engine to it, and the only plane big enough to fly in an engine is Ukrainian...

They've posted an update at the end of that article saying that a full engine replacement wasn't required:

Update—It was a quick fix!
Thankfully for all involved the worst case scenario laid out above did not come to pass and Air India was able to return the aircraft to India in just a matter of days. We’re awaiting news from Air India on the precise nature of the issue, but it did not require a full engine change.

[ThePoshUns]

@Wellgoodforyou im near Bristol and yes I wave when family fly over too 😝

[YorkieTheRabbit]

I’ve been on a plane that had to make an emergency landing due to a medical emergency so no time to burn off excess fuel and it wasn’t dumped either.
Seeing all the fire engines and emergency vehicles waiting at the side of the runway was pretty bloody scary.
Planes aren’t designed to land with the same amount of weight they takeoff with. We had to wait for engineers to check the landing gear hadn’t been damaged and was fully operational before we could take off. Airlines don’t dump fuel for the sake of it.

[BarelyLiterate]

Wide body aircraft such as the Airbus A380 which was operating BA207 today need to carry many tons of fuel for their journey. The A380’s maximum fuel capacity is 320,000 litres. When the aircraft is loaded up with passengers, baggage, catering supplies, cargo & fuel for a long-haul trip, it is likely to be well above its maximum landing weight. (But not, obviously, above it’s maximum take-off weight, which is higher).
Modern aircraft only dump fuel in a genuine emergency, so if a technical problem arises (which happens all the time) meaning they have to divert or return to base early in their trip, they may have to burn the excess fuel off by flying around for several hours until they are below the maximum landing weight. Frustrating, expensive & massively inconvenient, but not a crisis. That’s what appears to have happened today.

[notimagain]

@PickleIsAPlumbCat

Twitter saying they’ve got a failure of something on board that will ground the airplane in Miami so are returning to Heathrow. Place fully functional though so not in danger.

Sounds credible...

Quite often you'll have a system that has a main working bit and a back up.

If the main fails in flight the the back up takes over and the rules may allow a flight to legitimately continue to destination but the rules might also then prohibit a further takeoff until everything is fixed.

So...the smart thing to do if you have a failure just after leaving main base (e.g for BA that's LHR) is for one of the pilots to talk to the engineers via satcom or datalink and ask them where it is best for the aircraft to go.

As for fuel burning or dumping..well there's a maximum landing weight (except in dire emergency) so fuel has to be got rid of somehow.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

@BreehyHinnyBrinnyHoohyHah

There's quite a few of us flightradar nerds on Mumsnet. No need for the snarkiness, if you don't find something interesting, ignore and move on like the mature grown up I'm sure you are.

You’ve made my day calling those, who love flight radar nerds. My teen dd loves flight radar. She definitely wouldn’t consider herself a nerd.

[Gorringe]

@Friolero

They need to burn at least 2 hours more fuel - here's the voice recording from the pilots to ATC.

twitter.com/eisnspotter/status/1671891813639294982?s=61&t=fF54qY-30vENEyi975gm4w

how interesting! never knew such detail could be found!

[FormerlySpeckledyHen]

Vienna to Munich is going a funny way…

[Tendu]

@helpfulperson

@GulesMeansRed I listened recently to a conversation from when a window smashed open and a passenger was sucked out. They all sounded amazingly calm then as well. I think the just train to sound like that and not panick. Although all other evidence suggests this isn't a big problem.

This has chilled my blood!

[Munches]

@drpet49

Who cares?

Wish you was my friend. Not