I was looking for a tracking map for Irma that included category numbers with her projected pathway — NOAA doesn’t show this on their site — but was completely sidetracked when I came across the story of the last flight out of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
As Hurricane Irma blasted up the corridor over the Lesser Antilles, and barreled down on Puerto Rico, most flights for San Juan were either turning around or cancelled before takeoff.
Not Delta Flight 431.
It took off from JFK as scheduled and headed into the path of the storm in a race against a true force of Nature: Hurricane Irma. It wasn’t just that the passengers on board needed to get to the island, but those waiting in San Juan wanted desperately to evacuate.
Aviation reporter Jason Rabinowitz tracked this amazing flight using FlightRadar24 and provided live commentary on Twitter. He began his commentary with the flights that were turning around.
Then Jason noticed Delta Flight 431...
Yep, the crew of DL431 were determined to make it to San Juan and back to JFK again. It was a big ask. With wind speeds on the ground intensifying, the race was on to first get the flight to San Juan on time.
Muscling its way through the outskirts of the hurricane, the crew prepared for the landing ahead. As they approached, wind speeds on the ground were being recorded at around 23 knots (26mph) with gusts up to 31 knots (36mph). But the crew were confident — all these conditions are below safe operating limits for the 737-900ER.
Jason was right. Delta Flight 431 landed safely at 12:01pm (local time) to light rain. They’d beaten Irma on the way in but now the pilot, crew and ground staff had another challenge ahead of them: unload all passengers and luggage, clean the aircraft, board the plane with 173 new passengers anxious to leave, and get out of San Juan before Irma arrived with the full force of 185mph winds revolving around the eye wall.
Their one advantage was significant: airplanes are actually better at flying through hurricanes than thunderstorms because they can easily deal with horizontal winds but struggle with vertical winds. Even so, their window of opportunity was closing fast.
The plane managed a tight turnaround, departing San Juan as Flight FL302 at 12:52pm, just 52 minutes after it had landed as FL431. Subtracting the minutes taken to taxi in and out, the plane had spent a mere 40 minutes at the gate.
FL302 would be the last flight out of San Juan before Irma forced closure of the airport and flight control tower.
The crew focused on a gap between the hurricane's outer rain band and the center of the storm. It was narrow, it’s edges made ragged by the outer storm winds but through it there was open sky.
They navigated the narrow exit with impressive skill, found clear sky and enjoyed a smooth ride back to JFK where they landed 39 minutes ahead of schedule.
Delta praised its meteorology team as "the best in the business":
"They took a hard look at the weather data and the track of the storm and worked with the flight crew and dispatcher to agree it was safe to operate the flight," company vice-president Erik Snell said.
"And our flight and ground crews were incredible in their efforts to turn the aircraft [around] quickly and safely so the flight could depart well before the hurricane threat."
Delta Airlines, a company badly in need of some good PR, did an outstanding job this time.
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As for a tracking map showing Irma’s category ratings, I found a site explaining the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale plus information about Irma from AccuWeather which enabled the overlaying of category ratings on the NOAA tracking map:
May all those in her path stay safe.