Yesterday, Typhoon No. 11 hit Japan. Although the Tokyo area was not severely affected, the sudden storm still brought significant difficulties to various modes of transportation. I witnessed a Dornier Do-228 (JA34CA) getting stranded right on Flightradar24. Here are a few screenshots. I have previously introduced this New Central Airways’ Do-228 and its route in my Tokyo Chofu Airport Shooting Notes, so I won’t go into details here.

At first, I noticed its Track was further east than usual, and at a higher altitude, presumably trying to circumvent the cloud layers.

It looked like there was really no avoiding it, so it started circling over Kamakura, waiting,

It flew a figure-eight pattern,

It looked like the clouds were moving from land towards the sea. With no other choice, it retreated towards the sea and did another Turn,

That didn’t work either, so it turned back again,

It challenged towards the land again,

Not quite ready to give up, it did another big loop,

After circling 5 times and struggling for nearly 20 minutes, it looked like the weather wouldn’t improve anytime soon. The Captain finally decided to Divert to Oshima Airport.

I checked the weather at its Destination; it probably looked landable at the time of Takeoff. However, the weather changes fast during typhoon days. If they had known it would be like this, it would have been better not to come out at all…