The very violent winds of the Larisa storm did not only fan the flames of eight forest fires, this weekend, on the Côte d’Azur. They also wreaked havoc on Nice airport traffic. The platform thus indicates to 20 minutes that the weather caused, between Friday and Saturday, twenty-one flight cancellations, twenty-three reroutings but also 36 “go-arounds”. A procedure applied by pilots when they cancel their approach at the last moment, the conditions for a landing not being met. With sometimes a few cold sweats, as was particularly the case for an Air France flight between Paris and Nice, supposed to land Friday at 2:30 p.m.
“It was total panic,” said To Nice morning a former stewardess on the plane. “People and children were screaming. There was vomiting. People fainted. I was sure to die. I sent farewell messages to my loved ones, ”testified another passenger. According to her, the captain would have tried to land three times, before giving up and finally leaving for Montpellier.
“Maximum engine thrust”
A completely “normal” procedure, according to Philipe Lacroute, spokesperson for Air France flight operations. “All of a sudden, the engines start up again: we go from a descent situation to an ascent with maximum thrust from the reactors. It’s a change of state that customers are not necessarily used to. I understand that people may have been worried, because they don’t know what’s going on and they don’t have the same information as the crew,” explained the manager to the regional daily.
According to an airport spokesperson, the wind, which mainly impacted air traffic on Saturday, “changed direction quickly and generated shear”, a “phenomenon which disrupts landings by moving the plane”.