360 degree turn on Intercontinental Flight

[sidrocke]

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?

[zerozero]

Wild guess:

Certain overflight permits were not in order.

Aircraft arrived at FIR boundary, local authorities had no information, one circle to sort things out, then on your way.

???

I dunno. Could be several possibilities.

[bobrun]

Maybe aircraft separation? Never been in that part of the world, but some country require 10 min separation between succeeding aircrafts.

[sidrocke]

This is a regular daily route flown by Continental. We were already over Brazil (based on in flight monitors) at the time of the 360. It did occur to me that this might be a timing issue or separation issue, but had never experienced a full 360 at this altitude.

[18-Wheeler]

I've had to do a full 360° orbit soon after levelling off out of Shanghai, down to Kuala Lumpur. The Chinese controller told us to "make one left-hand orbit".
We were so surprised we got him to say it again, to be sure.
We did it, and it cost a fair bit of fuel and time - there was no explanation as to why, but I'd have to assume conflisting traffic or the like.

[stilton]

Whose 747-400 ? don't know anyone with that equipment on that route.

[sinkingship]

I know it happens in China, they close off airspace without notice for military traffic and your stuck at 33000ft (10200 meters in their case) doing orbits!

[sidrocke]

correction, it was a 767-400ER and its a regular Contintental route between Houston and Sao Paulo.

[Roy Bouchier]

Used to happen occasionally on Cuba overflights while the controllers fumbled to see if we had permission.

[mustangsally]

It could also be, the next controller direct that they cross XYZ point be after pick a time. The flight was say three minutes away from the fix but some how had to delay for say eight minutes. Also in parts of Brazil the radar coverage is not the greatest or even not there, so separation is maintained by time separation. Not a big deal.

The flight also could have been given a clearance limit. Can not proceed beyond without further clearance, thus a turn in holding.

[ratarsedagain]

I've even seen it happen at the ocean entry points into the NAT system to ensure separation.

[Flight Detent]

Yeah...happened to me Bangkok-Dubai in a B747 freighter trying to get clearance to enter/overfly Indian airspace??

Got it sorted in one orbit, and continued on...

Cheers...FD...

[singpilot]

The words "remain clear of French airspace, I call you back..." come to mind.

[Bullethead]

I was driving a B747-400 en-route from KLAX to KJFK and when I was just south of Chicago I was given a right orbit at FL390 to fit in with the KJFK flow. It worked fine as about an hour and a half later we arrived at KJFK with minimal vectoring.

Regards,
BH.