Flight Diverted Due to Wind Storm - Turbulent Missed Approach - Knocked Out of LAS - Volaris A321neo

A terrible windstorm hit Las Vegas on March 2, 2024 that delayed, cancelled and diverted flights. This is a missed approach that resulted in a flight diversion to Oakland (OAK). Flight origin was from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. The turbulence wasn’t necessarily severe but it definitely knocked us around a lot to where people were getting uncomfortable. The approach was extremely unstable causing the pilots to go missed approach. In the video you can see the plane dip several times and attempt to restabalize until the pilots quickly throttle up and everyone gets pushed back in their seats (camera gets thrown back at around 6:10), followed by a steep climb with several G’s of force at 6:20).
Volaris Flight 960
Airbus A321N
Route: GDL - LAS, Diverted to OAK
XA-VUD
Aircraft Name: None
March 2, 2024
Seat 4A

[@nitzer280]

Landing in LAS, even in the best of conditions, can be adventurous. Thanks for posting!

[@XplorationXpedition]

Dude yes I agree ! I always meet some turbulence on landing in vegas!

[@ronhyde]

Great video!

[@markfortuin7111]

An excellent video and so very well captured. Thanks for posting.

[@joelt4416]

Excellent video! I appreciate the way you described the situation, This was pretty bad, moderate + and very windy. I see many videos on youtube with turbulence that is probably not even half of what I see here, and the title would say "extreme severe turbulence" etc! LOL! Good job!

[@pietromalorgio8812]

Great video - normally the pilot does not throttle up manually - the engine is controlled by the speed management system of the autopilot. The flight by wire system of the Airbus ensures that the plane remains in the flight envelope, meaning it ensures that it does not stall, by controlling angle of attack and speed for the requested descent rate.

[@TheBudgetTraveller786]

A very fascinating video, thanks for sharing

[@CleverIV]

Can hear auto pilot disconnect on the go @6:10

[@realsnoyt]

Dam

[@j.ahayward7245]

I live in Vegas,and we do have high winds here from time to time.I remember we was flying back from Seattle,and as we were approaching the airport to land,the plane suddenly jerked up to the west because of highwinds,me and a lot of people was scared and shocked.So we went up in the air and it turned to the south as we did a circle like this plane then it turned east around the airport .We then landed safely at the same runway the plane,it was scary.

[@johndemerse9172]

What made those pilots think they could land safely?

[@pacnwguy9056]

Bumpiest takeoffs and landings I've ever experienced were in Vegas, Reno, and Phoenix. Salt Lake City and Denver can be hairy sometimes too.

[@Christopher-hx6xm]

No disrespect but where are they going to divert to,palm springs is straight as an arrow

[@aviationapproach]

The flight ended up diverting to Oakland. Which was somewhat odd since Ontario was closer and the airline has operations at that field as well. But I guess the airline made the call to go to Oakland to avoid the storm system as a whole.

[@NsixVHF]

@@aviationapproach The "diversion" airport is usually pre-planned before the flight even takes off. They look at all the weather, etc., and even add the necessary fuel to make it to their divert airport.

[@aviationapproach]

@@NsixVHFyou are absolutely correct. The pilots knew about the terrible weather ahead of time and Volaris has slots / operations at the Oakland airport.