What a flight.
Today our roster indicated a flight from Palma to Leipzig. As usual we met in the briefing room and prepared for this flight. We collected weather data, ordered fuel and discussed the most important topics together with our cabin crew.
Only 10 minutes later we were on our way to the aircraft. Upon arrival the fuel truck was still doing its job.
The amount of fuel ( 14000kg ) covered both sectors with extra fuel just in case of bad weather.
After we had all the passengers and baggage on board we were able to close the doors and get ready for that flight. Our departure from runway 06R in Palma was smooth and we were rewarded with beautiful views of that lovely island.
Soon we left some clouds behind us as we climbed to our cruising altitude of 38000 feet. It was a relaxed and comfortable ride above the clouds. We were able to catch a glance at the cities of Marseille and Geneva.
After 2 hours we got ready for the approach. We checked the computers and calculated our landing distance. Everything was in proper order.
Landing was performed on runway 26L.
After we turned the aircraft around, after cleaning, boarding and loading the baggage, we set off to a very interesting flight.
Everything was just perfect until we started our descend towards the airport of Palma de Mallorca. The sunset was amazing. And so were the thunderstorms which accumulated around the island and driving our weather radar nuts. Huge cells were shown on the weather radar image, with colors from green ( mainly light rain, a few bumps possible ) all the way to magenta ( severe turbulence and thunderstorms with lots of precipitation ).
There was no way of getting through in time to perform a safe landing at the airport. So I decided to circumnavigate that nasty weather. We were already quite close to the airport at a low altitude when we had to turn away again heading southbound to Africa. The fact that we got so much extra fuel on board made this an easy task. However, I never saw such nasty thunderstorms, lightning and crazy bumps before in any of my flights.
It took us 80 nautical miles ( around 150 km ) to circumnavigate all those clouds. But at last we were able to turn back on course to our home base . After landing everyone was quite relieved and happy to be back on ground.
What do you think about that flight? Let me know and if you want: support me on: http://www.patreon.com/sailingcelina.
Sailing Celina 