Airliner flying circles

[Roy Lime]

Saturday afternoon, about five PM I was walking the dog when an airliner caught my eye. It seemed to be flying at the normal height for an approach into Manchester (about 8000ft I think) but it was turning sharply AWAY from the airport. I watched it perform three quite tight circles before flying a much wider arc and heading off to land.

For anyone who know the area it was roughly over Bleaklow. Conditions were bright and clear. From where I was standing I could see the airport and there was other traffic in the sky.

It was a twin-engined 'plane, possibly a 767 and I think the airline might have been Thomas Cook (blue tail fin). I'm well-used to watching aircraft up there and have never seen one circle like that before - it was rather dramatic.

Does anyone know what it might have been up to?

[pushthebutton]

Holding...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holding_(aviation)

[Roy Lime]

Thanks, I've never seen one do that before - it did seem very low and tight.

Any reason why it would be holding? There wasn't much heading into the airport. Also, it was turning to the left.

[MitchT]

Roy Lime said:

Any reason why it would be holding? There wasn't much heading into the airport.

Maybe there were a load of departures that needed to be shifted first. If the one you saw was late and its landing would have interfered with a load of timely departures then they might have elected to hold it rather than delay the departure of a load of flights which would subsequently cause a problem on reaching their destination out of their slot.

[MarkwG]

MitchT said:

Roy Lime said:

Any reason why it would be holding? There wasn't much heading into the airport.

Maybe there were a load of departures that needed to be shifted first. If the one you saw was late and its landing would have interfered with a load of timely departures then they might have elected to hold it rather than delay the departure of a load of flights which would subsequently cause a problem on reaching their destination out of their slot.

May also be more on final approach that you can't see ahead of it in the queue; it's usually more efficient for the aircraft to fly a hold than get the guided tour of the local area, just depends on circumstances. Might have been a repostion hold ahead of a runway change, may also be a larger aircraft, further away than it looks: Saudi fly 777's into Manchester, I think, & apart from the scale, they're very similar to the 767. Doesn't sound suspicious to me.