Dozens of New Year’s Day Flights Diverted, Canceled After San Diego Flooding

Hundreds of individuals flying into or out of San Diego on New 12 months’s Day had their travel plans disrupted after a rainstorm hit town.

Information from Flightradar24 confirmed 40 flights headed for San Diego Worldwide Airport determined to land elsewhere on January 1.

There have been sufficient diversions that air visitors management activated a restoration device to assist planes attain their supposed locations.

One other 53 flights into or out of the airport had been canceled, plus practically 270 had been delayed, in accordance with information from FlightAware.

That meant round 40% of the flights had been not on time.

The disruption was because of an “gear outage,” in accordance with an air visitors management advisory.

In a put up on X, the airport additionally said the climate was inflicting flight delays, with some close by roads closed because of flooding.

San Diego is the third-busiest airport in California. It reported dealing with over 25 million passengers in 2024.

The airport and the Federal Aviation Administration didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark Enterprise Insider despatched exterior US working hours.

Whereas lots of the diverted flights ultimately made it to San Diego, it was possible a irritating day for a lot of travellers.

Japan Airlines Flight 66 had flown about 10 hours from Tokyo to San Diego. After circling across the airport, it diverted to Los Angeles, a 30-minute flight away.

Simply over two hours later, the Boeing 787 took off once more and accomplished the quick flight all the way down to San Diego.

Some Southwest Airlines passengers departing Sacramento had a two-hour flight to nowhere. Flight 3138 spent an hour circling north of Los Angeles earlier than returning to its origin, per flight-tracking information. It later took off once more and reached San Diego about 5 hours not on time.

Whereas most flights had been capable of divert elsewhere in California, round a dozen of them diverted to Phoenix.

A Southwest flight from Baltimore spent about an hour circling simply west of the Arizona state capital earlier than touching down there.

It was on the bottom for over three hours earlier than persevering with on to San Diego, touchdown roughly 5 hours later than deliberate.

The airline did not instantly reply to requests for remark despatched by Enterprise Insider exterior US working hours.

Two non-public jets, flying from Colorado ski resorts, did not need to divert too far — they had been the one ones capable of land at McClellan-Palomar Airport in northern San Diego County, per Flightradar24.