360 degree turn on Intercontinental Flight
I regularly travel between US and South America. Last April I was flying on a 747-400 from Houston to Sao Paulo. 5 or 6 hours or so into the flight (of a 9.5 hour ride) I was wide awake and watching the in flight monitors of the flight progress. I noticed we began a long left turn, wondered if there was some problem and began thinking about the logistics of an unplanned landing. To my surprise, the plane made a complete 360 in the middle of the night at some 38,000 feet over Brazil. The pitch of the plane hardly changed and it took a fair amount of time to make the 360. In fact, the only way it was detectable was on the flight monitor. I was and still am completely baffled by this. I have flown 1000's of miles internationaly and never encountered anything like this. Any idea why a pilot would do a complete 360 in the middle of an intercontinental flight?