Delta - Diversion Disaster
 

Today’s weather was no joke for airlines in the midwest/east coast. Most flights cancelled or delayed. Airport filled from wall-to-wall with people wondering where to go, or where the lines start or end. Hotels at full capacity.

I had a breath of fresh air when we finally boarded the Delta flight from Minneapolis to DC with no connecting flight. It felt like the jackpot flight. A delay in take off due to a ground personnel shortage, but hey at least it wasn’t cancelled.

Approaching Reagan Airport - we began our descent, seemingly normal enough. Suddenly we were lifting back up, confused passengers presumed it was probably weather. Pilot finally updated the cabin that there were dangerous winds; many minutes after the fact.

This happened 3 more times, with the bumpiest & most stomach-dropping ride I’ve ever experienced. Most of the cabin passengers were getting sick or sobbing. The scene was awful; this was not a good time.

Eventually our pilot made the decision to divert to Dulles which isn’t far, just more inland & less windy than Reagan. I wished he had made this decision 3 landing attempts prior to avoid the mass hysteria happening on board. The energy in the cabin was absolute terror after the second and third attempts.

Anywho, normally I love airports & flying - but today I’m happy to be safe on the ground. Wishing all the best to all those in this weekend’s stormy craziness! Best of luck all.

nice alliteration in the clickbait thread title

while it *was* a distressing experience (and, given three missed approaches, probably unnecessarily so) for more than a few passengers, this was NOT IN ANY WAY a “disaster”

that said, welcome to FT

I live in the neighborhood immediately south of Pentagon City and west of Crystal City near Reagan National (I can walk to the DL TSA checkpoint in about 20-25 mins from my house).

The winds tonight were unreal. Very strong gusts out of nowhere like I have never heard. The winds came after a nice day during the Nationals/Braves ball game.

I actually watched your plane make its attempts from the Alexandria riverbank of the Potomac. I had just finished dinner in North Old Town and knew with the winds the landings were going to be a sight to see. The last attempt was pretty wild. The winds, at least at ground level, had actually calmed down for a few minutes. But as soon as your plane was at about 1,500 feet a massive gust came through and the A319s engines powered up and your plane turned out to the west, headed to Dulles. A lot of smaller RJs were able to land on 33, but just feel lucky you didn't get sent to RIC like some last night.

Clearly I missed the “disaster” part of this story.

Made 3 attempts at DCA, diverted to IAD. Ok.

Is there any video of this mass hysteria?

Disaster would have been not diverting to a safe airport.

So everyone was safe and you landed at an airport with easy taxi/Uber/Metro access to DC? While certainly scary, and unwelcome, disaster seems a bit much, no?

DL1743 (the flight that did this) ended up taking off an hour later from IAD to do the short flight over to DCA as the aircraft was needed to do the return leg back to MSP that night so pax likely didn’t have the opportunity to leave the airport at IAD.

This accusatory sentence is consistent with the pilot doing his job correctly. Aviate, then Navigate, then Communicate. In other words: first, fly the plane!

We were out at Boeing/Long Bridge Park yesterday around 530 pm and a huge gust of wind blew through from the Northwest that would have put a horrible tailwind onto the DL plane (for all I know it could have been the OP’s) that was just about to land on 19. Sure enough, they did a go around and I noticed they turned around the arrival pattern onto 1 not too long after. I noticed (and heard) quite a bit of go arounds yesterday walking around the Mall and Crystal City after the rain stopped.

Remember: Commercial aviation has a perfect record - they've never left one in the air.

Hey OP-
i am sorry people are such .......s on here sometimes. Especially for folks on your flight who don’t fly a lot, this would have been terrifying. I looked at the Flightradar24 track from last night, that is a LOT of circling and dipping in strong winds. Absolutely would be making people sick and freak out.

don’t let people on here get you down. They may be full of bravado behind the keyboard but would definitely be at least a little shaken given that flight if they were on it.

It does look fairly unique

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...930Z/KMSP/KDCA

safe, but quite unpleasant, not doubt

Three go-arounds in one flight? I'd probably pay a little extra to experience that.

But then again I love flying and turbulence doesn't bother me.