The flight was slightly off track from the path of totality, Delta said, as air traffic control dealt with severe traffic jams and a flood of requests for special maneuvers along the eclipse's path. While another Delta flight from Austin was cleared to climb to the correct altitude to perform a maneuver called an S-curve, the airline said the Dallas flight was not.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not comment specifically on the Delta flight's path, but said the agency was focused on safety as non-commercial jets and planes filled the air to observe the eclipse above the clouds. The FAA had previously warned of congestion and possible impacts on air traffic.
“Our first goal and top priority is always flight safety,” FAA spokesman Chris Mullooly said. “We knew there would be possible impacts on some traffic.”
Instead of the planned maneuvers, Delta's Airbus A321neo flew in a circle to provide an overview of both sides at 33,000 feet. But the passengers didn't get the view they expected.
“I kind of immediately suspected that the positioning was wrong,” said passenger Dimitrije Ratkov, who raised the possibility that the flight had missed the entire thing to the Post on Thursday. “I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know exactly what.”
Delta had warned of such a possibility, even though passengers were in some cases paying more than $1,000 for a seat. For both the Dallas And Austin flights, the airline included this disclaimer: “Although Delta flight plans have been designed to maximize the time spent on the entire route, this is subject to change due to factors beyond control. will be controlled by Delta, such as weather and air traffic control, which could impact timing and aircraft. .”
Aboard Flight 1010, passengers – including this reporter, who paid nearly $850 for a refundable ticket – craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the sun. “Can you see it?” turned into “Did you see it?” while the plane was turning. The sky and ground darkened, but glimpses of the sun were brief.
Several people took photos of the sun partially obscured by the moon, later showing glowing orange vignettes. They attributed the difficulty to the tricky angle of the sun overhead, the speed of the plane, and the plane's limitations.
While the flight was packed with media, movement outside the eclipse's main path was only discovered when Ratkov, a virology doctoral student at the Mayo Clinic, compared the flight's path to that of the eclipse using a flight tracking site And NASA eclipse map. He posted his videos on YouTube and sent emails to reporters with the subject line: “Dallas Eclipse Flight took a wrong turn and left the path of totality.”
Delta did not confirm the accuracy of Ratkov's video, but acknowledged after reviewing questions from The Post that the plane had left the path of totality. Flight tracking sites Flight radar24 And Aware of theft show the plane circling southeast of Jonesboro, Ark.
The first Delta flight announced for the eclipse, from Austin, appeared on Flightradar24 to stay on the path. Photos from that flight clearly showed darker skies and the sun blocked by the moon, although Detroit Free Press photographer Eric Seals wrote on Instagram that even that was “very difficult to photograph.”
Many passengers on the Dallas flight told The Post Monday that while they were disappointed not to have a better vantage point, they still enjoyed the experience. The airline held parties before takeoff and after landing and placed bags filled with special socks, hats, snacks and other trinkets on the seats.
The captain told The Post on Monday that those on the left side of the plane probably had the best view, and said the flight took just over three minutes to see everything. He said USA Today: “It was great. It really went off without a hitch.
Kyle Carter, a private pilot and stay-at-home dad from Orlando, said Monday he was glad to have seen the moon's shadow rush toward the plane from behind. He said Friday that as a pilot, he understood in advance that several factors could make the experience less than ideal.
“I would do it again,” he said. “I went in with that kind of background knowledge. It wasn't sure to me that we were going to see him.
Ratkov, who paid a little more than $1,100 for a refundable ticket, said he started traveling from Minnesota early Sunday morning, slept that night at the Dallas airport and He returned home around 6 a.m. Tuesday. He said the mood in his argument was chatty and upbeat until the whole thing, but depressed afterward.
After the airline issued a celebration press release and media coverage was largely positive, he said he wants the record on the flight to be corrected and for Delta to provide an explanation for what happened.
“It was a major disappointment” and a big financial investment, he said. “It had obviously been billed as the second eclipse flight.”
