An Air France flight from Paris to Bastia turned into an unexpected three-hour ordeal, when severe thunderstorms and violent winds forced the Airbus A320 back to Paris-Orly after circling repeatedly over the French Riviera…
Flight AF4244 had departed from Paris-Orly at around 6:20 p.m. on August 28th, bound for Bastia. Instead of the usual one-hour trip, passengers found themselves trapped in turbulence as the aircraft encountered gusts of up to 159 km/h, accompanied by heavy rain, hail, and lightning. The extreme conditions made any approach into Corsican airports impossible.
As reported by Monaco Matin, radar tracking showed the flight circling above Nice and Monaco for an extended period while the crew waited for a safe landing opportunity. Several attempts to reposition and await clearance were abandoned when weather conditions failed to improve. With fuel and safety margins narrowing, the pilots made the decision to abandon the route altogether.
The return journey took the aircraft across Montpellier and Tours before touching down back at Orly without incident, more than three hours after its initial departure.
The storms that grounded AF4244 also disrupted air traffic across Corsica. Flights from both Paris and Marseille faced diversions, with some rerouted to Nice where conditions briefly allowed landings. Calvi airport was entirely unusable as heavy weather swept the island.
For passengers, the frustration was acute: after enduring hours of circling and turbulence, they found themselves back in the capital with no progress made toward their destination. What should have been a short hop to the Isle of Beauty became an exhausting reminder of how dependent modern travel remains on the elements.
By the following morning, conditions had eased enough for air traffic to resume, though Météo-France kept a yellow storm alert in place until Saturday.
Photo by Adam Khan
