Emirates flight EK 1 DXB - LHR
I met a couple friends at Heathrow this morning who had travelled on this flight. I tracked it on Flightstats to check it was going to be on time (which it was) and noticed that while flying north-westwards over Iraq it turned around over the Thermal Lake northwest of Baghdad, flew south-eastwards quite a long way towards the southwest of Baghdad, and then turned again to continue its journey along the flight path it had just taken.
My friends were unaware of this manoeuvure as they were asleep at the time.
I was wondering what was the reason for this. I also saw from the flight log that the speed reduced considerably, from 640 kts to 440 kts in a matter of minutes. The altitude, however, remained the same at 38000 feet.