i saw the EK15 declared an inflight emergency because of storm Erik and is diverting to MAN? But wind speeds at the time were only 20knts gusting to 30 knots. Anything else going on?

We picked up a predictive wind shear ahead whilst pointing West on the taxiway parallel to 26L bizarrely enough, at the same time the Emirates aircraft on approach called going around due wind shear, so obviously that was the first event. Not sure about the second go around as we were airborne by then but we heard them on the London Frequencies declaring a mayday and initially requesting Stansted before deciding Manchester. Not for the first time this has happened with this kind of wind in Gatwick for the A380.

The building has gone, though the turbulence hasn”t

Hi - I was a passenger on this flight. The pilot seemed concerned from the outset. When we boarded in Dubai he mentioned the predicted wind and rain at Gatwick and said “we hope to get you there safely”.

With the cameras we were able to watch both landings and we seeemed a long way from runway on both attempts. Would crew confidence and an obvious landing worry before we even left Dubai come into it?

What was then strange was it was announced we were diverting to Manchester yet spent another 15 mins circling around Brighton. . .

Thats a very simplistic / basic / fly by numbers approach to windshear warnings. As a previous poster points out, what’s the point of exchanging one windy runway for another with less fuel. On a day like today every runway in the UK is going to be affected by lumpy wind, some will have a larger xwind component than others but that doesn’t mean they’re more or less likely to have a windshear event.

In my airline as long as multiple criteria are met and the decision to continue is pre briefed it is permissible to treat a windshear warning as a caution and continue the approach. Of course just because you can doesn’t mean you must, so I temper the briefing to say we’ll be continue minded above 500ft and w/s ga minded below 500ft and there’s no need to try to be heroes.