Strange Adelaide flightpath

[Caversham04]

I was at Brighton (south of Adelaide Airport) today at around lunchtime. We saw what looked like a Virgin plane descending from SW to NE. We initially thought it was coming in low to land to the NW on the secondary runway but it carried on flying straight ahead and descending. For a horrible minute, we thought we were about to see a crash as it was below the height of the Adelaide Hills and still descending slowly, until it climbed suddenly and VERY sharply, still heading NE. Anyone got any idea what was going on?

 

[CaptJCool]

I was at Brighton (south of Adelaide Airport) today at around lunchtime. We saw what looked like a Virgin plane descending from SW to NE. We initially thought it was coming in low to land to the NW on the secondary runway but it carried on flying straight ahead and descending. For a horrible minute, we thought we were about to see a crash as it was below the height of the Adelaide Hills and still descending slowly, until it climbed suddenly and VERY sharply, still heading NE. Anyone got any idea what was going on?

Nope
Possibly

 

[Mattg]

Do you know the flight number, and/or the exact time and whether the plane was arriving or departing ADL?

 

[Mattg]

Nope
Possibly


View attachment 413609

Wouldn't have been VA712, that had a fairly constant descent rate all the way down.

 

[Caversham04]

Wouldn't have been VA712, that had a fairly constant descent rate all the way down.

Was also coming in the wrong way - this was to the south of Adelaide airport, heading NE

 

[CaptJCool]

None on the Flight app suggested that approach

 

[Askance]

I had a quick look at all the Virgin landings between 12 and 2, and it looks to me like they all came in from the NE and landed on runway 23, ie coming in over North Adelaide.

Can you be more specific on the time?

 

[Caversham04]

Do you know the flight number, and/or the exact time and whether the plane was arriving or departing ADL?

Don’t know whether it was arriving or departing; hard to tell from the constant NE heading that we saw. Rough time would have been 12:30-ish, flightpath as per the screengrab….

 

[TomVexille]

There were a few departures that looped in that direction, but none that were descending or had a sharp climb

 

[Caversham04]

There were a few departures that looped in that direction, but none that were descending or had a sharp climb

Strange; a couple of us saw it, and were all going “oh cough”, expecting a crash. Definitely not the usual Adelaide takeoff to the SW, then turn to port until pointing towards Sydney / Brisbane etc.; would have been MUCH higher by the time we saw it heading NE

 

[Mattg]

VA1395 most closely matches the description you've provided. It was never descending during that part of the flight, although the rate of climb reduced a bit and then increased. It doesn't look like it was in trouble from the flightradar playback.

 

[jase05]

Was it definitely a VA aircraft?
The RAAF Poseidon’s are always doing take off and landings at ADL during the week and they were out and and about today.

 

[Caversham04]

Was it definitely a VA aircraft?
The RAAF Poseidon’s are always doing take off and landings at ADL during the week and they were out and and about today.

Thanks; I guess it could have been. It clearly wasn't Qantas and we thought we could see VA markings on the tailfin but we may have been imagining it. The flightpath and maneuvering would certainly make more sense for a military jet than a passenger one