AF A380 short on fuel

[atakacs]

From AP:

BERLIN (AP) – Air France says a plane carrying 495 passengers and 22 crew was diverted on its way from Shanghai to Paris after Russia announced at short notice that part of its airspace was closed for a military exercise.

The company said flight AF111 was forced to land in Hamburg, Germany, early Wednesday to refuel because the plane had too little fuel on board to complete the flight following its detour.

Hamburg Airport confirmed that the plane landed shortly after 6 a.m. (0500 GMT) and was able to take off for Paris again after an hour and a half.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Russia’s military exercise was linked to the increased troop activity on its western border with Ukraine.

Is this something exceptional (I guess so) ?

Looking at the flight map

http://i.imgur.com/Dgbm0C6.jpg

it would seem that it certainly spent quite some time in Russian airspace... Are we to understand that they where actually forbidden to leave it ? Or is this not the actual flightpath ?

[skkm]

Are we to understand that they where actually forbidden to leave it ? Or is this not the actual flightpath ?

I interpret it that they were refused tracking on a more southerly route closer to Ukraine and instead sent north as shown on Flightaware.

[atakacs]

Looking at previous days tracks it would seem that this a fairly standard flight path... odd.

[Capt Fathom]

That track is as close as possible to the Great Circle route.

[Emel.OW]

That's what I've heard from the news:

Flight AF111 had to make a diversion after airspace over Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was closed for at least 30 minutes for the launch of a Russian Soyuz space rocket, an Air France spokeswoman said.

Don't know exactly but I'm sure there had to be an appropriate NOTAM. Anyway, no idea why this made news: no actual fuel emergency, just a diversion for some uplift. Just because it's a super?

[LeadSled]

Is this something exceptional (I guess so) ?

atakaces,
In short, no.
Even without airspace closures, other unforecast conditions can result in an en-route tec. stop.
Tootle pip!!

[Chaac]

Only one diversion, on a very busy international route, looks like another faux pas by the froggies, me thinks.

[atakacs]

Well looking into past flight tracks there is definitely no major discrepancy in the affected flight vs. previous days / weeks on this route (which, incidentally, can't be that close to a Riemannian circle given the fairly marked inflection over the Baltic Sea...).

That being said most likely a minor / routine incident.

[awblain]

That track on the map is south of the direct route, which crosses Mongolia, stays in Russia skirting Kazakhstan, and over St Petersburg to Paris.

If the route was modified south to avoid bits of falling Soyuz, and then military exercises prevented a direct flight from the Kazakh-Russia border to Paris, sending them back North, then I guess the route was longer than normal.

There's also headwinds to face heading West.

But better to stop in Hamburg than press on to Paris?

[Piltdown Man]

This a non-event. A crew decided to stop and uplift more fuel and then continue on with their journey because they thought they needed to. The consequences of not doing so would probably have the same people who questioned why they stopped asking why they didn't.

Our conspiracy theorists should also get a life. No airline that I know of dispatches an aircraft knowingly in an uneconomic fashion. In addition, most of these big heavies (and also the little ones I fly) depart without fuel 'for mum and the kids' and arrive at their destinations will little more than they legally have to. The cost of this this an occasional tech. stop.

[atakacs]

I'm pretty sure that you are quote correct on your assessment. Just wondering why they would stop on this occasion supposedly due to some airspace restrictions yet the usually excellent flightaware does not show an usual flight track.

Anyway I'm sure it's pretty much a non event anyway...