I.
After four days of indoor skydiving in Europe last week, my flight from Milan to New York with Emirates was diverted to Boston due to heavy rain, flash floods, and strong winds. There was even a tornado warning in effect for parts of the city. So I did what any respectable aviation geek would do: I set out to see just how much I could learn about flight EK 205 from publicly available sources.
Flightradar24 shows EK 205 performing a go-around at ~1,300 ft. LiveATC captured a Delta pilot reporting a go-around due to wind shear moments before Emirates. ATC then asked Emirates if the pilots wanted to try again. After a brief standby, Emirates requested to proceed to Boston as its alternate destination. Mike Sheward of ACARS Drama and I tried to find ACARS messages from Emirates, without any luck.
According to Flightradar24, a total of 16 JFK-bound flights diverted that evening: 13 to other airports and 3 air-return to origin. EK 205 continued its journey from Boston to New York the next day. The A380 completed the trip in 46 minutes. I’m pretty sure we spent longer on the ground waiting for a gate than we did in the air. (Compare: the shortest scheduled Emirates A380 flights – BKK to HKG and DXB to JED – are around two hours.)
II.
Speaking of ACARS Drama, I set up a Raspberry Pi with two Airspy receivers so that I can feed the project and access the full message archive. I’ve already found a Cargolux pilot report that a kettle is broken, and another asking “AS WE ARE ALREADY LATE, DO WE NEED TO FLY.”
III.
A new Netflix documentary about Boeing paints a picture of a company contributing to its own decline. (I forgot the company tried to outsource the majority of the 787 Dreamliner to suppliers around the world, resulting in puzzle pieces that did not fit together.) For a deep dive on the issues with the 737 Max, check out this podcast or this 2022 documentary.
IV.
The Secret World of Roald Dahl, published in January, is a podcast series about the creator of Willy Wonka, Matilda and The BFG. The series explores how Dahl, a former fighter pilot and British spy, became one of the most successful children’s authors in history. The podcast also asks whether we can separate the art from the artist as it digs into Dahl’s personal history of making deeply antisemitic and controversial public statements.