If you looked at a flight-tracking application, the skies over the United Arab Emirates appeared far from normal. Rather than having nice, straight lines flying to land, many planes were making bizarre zigzags—almost like they were hovering in the air.
Airspace over the UAE was being temporarily closed, so planes coming into the area would have to circle the airport, or possibly delay or even re-route until they could safely land.
The disruption started when there was increased tension in the region, prompting a surge in security. At that time, the UAE authorities decided to completely shut down the country’s airspace due to the attacks on Israel and U.S. owned places in the region, as a safety precaution.
When airspace is closed, there are planes out there, and they are not going to vanish.
Instead, they are going to be placed in a holding pattern.
Aircraft heading into Dubai (based upon my research, there were multiple aircraft that were supposed to land but did not do so) were required to remain in holding patterns—basically flying in circles while they await for a clearance.
An Emirates Boeing 777 flight from Lisbon to Dubai is one of the most notable cases regarding this latest trend in aviation; based on flight data from the company’s tracking system, this aircraft circled around in the air, changing its flight path back and forth until it would end up arriving approximately at 8:00 local time.
Similar to the Emirates flight, other flights from Dublin to Dubai had to circle above the airport for a significant amount of time without being given clearance to land.
Many flights coming from cities in either Riyadh or Jeddah had also experienced these types of movement; normally, such types of circular or zig-zag pattern movement are a regular occurrence in aviation when dealing with congestion due to an abundance of aircraft awaiting clearance for landing because there aren’t enough landing pads available to accommodate all of the aircraft that arrive at a given airport during peak hours.
An Etihad Airways flight travelling from Colombo to Abu Dhabi also had to temporarily divert from its current route prior to being allowed to resume flight toward its final destination when conditions permit.
Spent from waiting on the ground, passengers on any of these flights probably knew little about what was going on outside the confines of their airplane while they waited to land.
When looked at from a distance, the flights formed what appeared to be an intricately choreographed method of pre-landing aircraft waiting in the air.
Following the officials’ description of the closure of the airspace; an extraordinary measure undertaken on behalf of protecting passengers, crew members, and the nation’s airspace during a time when there was potential for instability.
A few short weeks after being shutdown, UAE airspace began opening up and flights started to come back on line. With time, the delays were reduced and aircraft flying in circles were now able to land.
From what was made public, it had been a very serious situation.
The UAE Ministry of Defense stated that hundreds of ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 drones were intercepted during the broader conflict.
That perspective supports the strict measures that were taken.
The appearance of the planes “wandering” across the sky as shown on flight trackers may seem odd, but every loop and zigzag in their patterns had a purpose.
They were not lost.
They were waiting for the safest possible opportunity to land.
