TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Interesting afternoon at Sunset Beach

We figured with only two large ships in port it would be a good day to go to SSB...and...a few days ago the beach was huge. Well....duh....weather was a MAJOR issue. Significant wave action washing the sea into the road and removing the sand from the previous few days.

But then the rain came....and came.....I originally went to get a pic of AF landing at145p and ended up taking shelter at SSB bar to wait. As scheduled AF came in but approached right over the bar instead of the normal path and then aborted landing....figured it would just make a circle and return but it did not. Also an AA flight came in and also aborted and another AA flight never came in

As we were driving away from SSB AF made another aborted attempt to land

As I type this AF just landed (322p) after circling for over 90 minutes. Both AA flights are still in the air. Guess AF had enough fuel to hang out for that long....

So much for the pic

Ok...so an edit as typing....The 145p AF(AF538) flight actually diverted to Guadeloupe and the one that just landed was another scheduled AF flight for 315p

AA from Miami was diverted to ST. Kitts

AA from CLT ended up in SJU

Wow! Any explanation as to what happened?

One flight just took off (in the wrong direction) 5 minutes ago, so the airport seems to be functioning now. IFR long-haul flights need at 90 minutes reserve at destination. I've been here in Simpson Bay and those rainclouds are just nimbostratus rainclouds and no CuNim (thunderstorms) which might threaten flights. I wonder if SXM's systems might have gone down and prevented arrivals? Although they could have done a daytime VFR landing given the benign conditions, perhaps it was something physical to do with the runway?

Since the aircraft actually approached the runway three times at low altitude I would assume it was pilot decision to divert....

...and the weather is no better now....

Flight that left an hour ago ("wrong way") was a delayed United flight

We watched all the action from our perch on the porch at Karakter. Straight line view down the runway. It was quite something to see - first the AF on approach and then as it aborted, a graceful arc out over the water. A reasonably sharp bank, looked like it was trying to show us its belly.

Many other diversions followed over the next hour, both large and small aircraft. Finally a private jet landed, reverse thrusters on full, looked like zero braking. Perhaps standing water on the runway was a contributing factor.

Then aircraft started to leave and the spray they threw was tremendous. We were all joking that we needed to get out there with squeegees to do our part.

But who really knows. The viz was very low at times, the cloud cover dense and the rain coming down hard. Better safe than sorry.

Forecast is for rain all week. The surfers were having a field day today

All week , wow , but good for our plants Guavas , Mangoes double this time around plus our Five Fingers and Bannas and Plantains . God's blessings .

after hearing about all the rain in november and early december, and then now in january, i feel pretty fortunate we had pretty great weather and calm surf conditions for our 2+ weeks over the holidays...our AA SXM-MIA flight took off the wrong way last tuesday even with good weather...not sure why

Nice day today...no rain

Planes save a significant amount of fuel when they take off the "wrong way". The prevailing wind is usually from the East, so they take off toward the hills. In the evening the wind often drops so they take off to the west. They can avoid the wide turns to head north.

Most passenger aircraft took off the "wrong way" yesterday afternoon/evening. It must have been interesting being at SSB bar when AF and KLM were gunning it

Elaine, Where is there good surf??? I've been surfing at Jones beach NY since I was a kid. There you will find upwards of 10-15 foot waves!!! Sometimes ( on my boogie board)I catch a lil wave in front of BSV and on Orient. Looking for that Cowabunga wave!!!

Kinda calmed down today