CUN-SEA diverted to LAX on 2/15
 

AS211 CUN-SEA diverted to LAX on 2/15. That's a long diversion way out of the direct route. The same plane eventually continued to SEA and arrived >5 hours late.

Any ideas what happened?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ce8f85e6ee.png

cun/etd0520p on-time *0922
cun/out0512p off0631p *1733
cun/flight stopping in lax to clear customs *2004*fcf8te
lax/pax will clear customs in lax and continue to sea *2036*fcf8rd
lax/on 0836p in 0923p 0.53l *2325
lax/etd1145p 3.00l due late arrival *0110
lax/out1135p 2.50l off1157p *0158
sea/intmd lndg at lax eta0830p *1958
sea/eta0225a 5.25l crew called in *0244

Perhaps someone can provide more insight as to why the flight would divert and clear through customs at a different airport.

reason for diversion: if I had to guess, a mechanical issue significant enough to need urgent attention but not of a “land at the nearest suitable airport” nature ... LAX has maintenance facilities and replacement flight crew

clearing customs is required at the point of arrival in the U.S.

Doesn't make a lot of sense for mechanical reasons, given it's only about 400 miles further to SEA than LAX at the diversion point. Crew timing out doesn't make sense either, as they overnight on that flight.

While we can speculate until the end of days on this one without facts, that diversion crosses reasonably low maximum altitudes as opposed to any diversion point further northward. Maybe or not that is relevant. It also provides multiple en-route diversion airports should they become necessary. Maybe or that that is relevant.

possibly something like pitot heat that’s required for descent through icing conditions (which probably wouldn’t exist in SoCal)

What time do Customs/Passport Control in Seattle close? Looks like the flight took off an hour late, maybe Customs in Seattle would be closed by arrival time, so LAX was chosen? No idea.

Looks like it diverted to LAX and continued on to Seattle(same plane). Probably just get to LAX to clear customs.

if so, they could have gone direct CUN-LAX rather than diverting over OK (or put down at any of a number of AS stations with Customs facilities that are much closer to the original flight plan (IAH, DFW, DEN) ... pretty sure there was a mechanical issue involved here

After a quick look on flightradar24, I can see that AS211 diverted to LAX on 1/28/2020, and to SFO on 12/30/2019 and 11/19/2019. It's a long route so is a fuel related diversion possible?

Can pax request credit for CUN-LAX-SEA (miles and segments), or does AS consider it a direct flight?

You could certainly try, but if the flight number remains the same, typically no credit for intermediate stop.

the info you posted above for yesterday’s flight indicates it pushed early at CUN, but didn’t actually take off until almost an hour and a half later cun/out0512p off0631p ... that says fuel *might* have been a factor, but I’ll reiterate what I said above about other AS stations closer to the direct CUN-SEA route; Customs hours could certainly influence the choice of a diversion location

it would be interesting to look at those three flight tracks to see where the crews initiated the diversions

Jan 28:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...de83f8e631.png

12/30:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a183fc009f.png

2/15/20
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...25b1fd748a.png

1/28/20
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...61695198f1.png

12/30/19
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a1b3c7be00.png

11/19/19
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b936eae750.png