What happened to DAL-148

Aviation Notable Activity
1

Hi all - I was flying DAL-148 out of JFK into LHR on saturday. Took off in heavy winds (advisory said 50mph gusts) - got to about 3000ft and I saw lightning hit the plane, which isn’t anything unusual - planes get struck all the time, in fact they make their own lightning sometimes.

We did a fairly impressive turn not long afterwards and then the pilot tells us we would divert to Atlanta. Circled many times before landing to get a bit lighter then landed with no problems - fairly hard landing, but nothing to write home about.

Does anyone know what happened to the plane to make it divert?

This is the tracker:
flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL1 … /KJFK/EGLL

2

Did you have to wait 15h in ATL before heading to LHR on DAL9880?

flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL … /KATL/EGLL

3

Yep thats me, although I persuaded them to put me on an earlier flight to LGR as I had an important interview at 10am - only just made it still wearing the same clothes as saturday haha.

4

Why would it divert to ATL rather than return to JFK?

5

Well thats what I thought, but they told us we were too heavy to land - not sure if thats the case for JFK as it has a large runway.

6

ATL is Delta’s biggest base. If you going to burn off fuel and the aircraft is going to need maintenance why not burn off the fuel and head to your biggest base if it’s relatively close?

7

And I’m sure there’s another 767 hanging around in ATL, if not a 764, there’s got to be a 763. All planes should be able to fly after a lightning strike, just probably not on ETOPS.

8

Looking at the flight data - when we were circling just north of Atlanta - at one point we were doing 121kts - isn’t that a little slow for a 767 at 11,900ft?

9

Why did,nt you just ask why you were diverted? Seems to be a basic question when you end up in the wrong city.

10

I did but nobody on the ground could answer me. It was 5am and there wasn’t many people around. The pilot didn’t pop out to see me when we landed.