The Finnair flight from Seattle returns to Helsinki twice
OMAAT reader John was on a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Seattle a few days ago, which was quite eventful. While flight diversions aren’t all that uncommon in the grand scheme of things, double diversions for the same reason are quite rare.
Finnair A330 moves to Helsinki due to pressurization
This case concerns a flight from Helsinki (HEL) to Seattle (SEA) on Wednesday 14 September 2022. More specifically, this was Finnair flight AY33operated by an approximately 12-year-old Airbus A330-300 with registration code OH-LTR.
The flight left Helsinki approximately as scheduled at 18:20 local time. The plane climbed to 34,000 feet, although a little more than 90 minutes after departure it was decided to return to Helsinki. Reason? The plane had pressure problems.
Interesting reader John noticed the plane turning around before the pilot reported it, so was understandably confused (I’m not saying the pilots did anything wrong there – their job is to fly first, then navigate, then communicate).
This was not an emergency requiring diversion to the nearest airport, but the pilots reportedly decided they did not feel comfortable flying the polar route with these problems. Eventually the plane descended to 30,000 feet, then 20,000 feet, then 10,000 feet. The plane landed back in Helsinki a little before 22:00 local time, about 3 hours and 40 minutes after takeoff.
Finnair A330 turns to Helsinki due to pressurization… again!
The problem with this Finnair A330 was reportedly resolved quite quickly, and at 23:19 the flight left for Seattle again – talk about a late departure! This time the plane climbed to 36,000 feet and it worked as planned for almost an hour… until it turned back to Helsinki.
Reader John spotted this again on the chart, and a short time later the captain reported that the problem had returned. This time the plane descended to 20,000 feet and spent about 2 hours 40 minutes in the air.
The plane landed in Helsinki without incident. In the end, the passengers took off on the first flight at 6:20 p.m. and landed back in Helsinki on the second flight at 1:49 a.m., so the journey to nowhere was about 8.5 hours.
At that point the flight was just canceled. Reader John ended up rebooking with Lufthansa via Frankfurt the next day, because presumably Finnair no longer had enough planes for the extra flight or simply didn’t think it was worthwhile.
Bottom line
A few days ago, a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Seattle returned to Helsinki twice due to the same pressurization problems, resulting in an approximately 8.5 hour flight to nowhere.
It’s strange because I feel like in the past double anomalies like this were almost unheard of, whereas last month there were at least two – ditto The TUI Boeing 737 returned to Brussels twice in one day for the same technical problem, while Aer Lingus A330 diverted twice to Hartford (first time due to weather and second time due to engine failure).
Still, the fact that in this case the same passengers on the same flight transferred to the same airport twice for the same reason is quite remarkable to me.
What do you think of this Finnair double trip?