The same Boeing passenger plane keeps being diverted after take-off... what's going on?

Independent

06-02-2025

It was a bad few weeks for one particular Boeing plane, which appears to have been diverted four times in 25 days.
An American Airlines 787-8 Dreamliner with the registration code N819AN appeared to repeatedly take off and then changing its direction back to its departure airport throughout January into February.
The incident was first pointed out by a user on Bluesky last week who said of the plane 'If I'm getting the full picture, this 787 has had an incredibly bad month or so – like not quite like much I've really seen before really. Diversions, aborted take-offs, out of service, etc.'
The first incident happened on 7 January. A flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Philadelphia, USA, ended up lasting only one hour and 46 minutes after changing its course and flying back to its departing airport, Amsterdam Schiphol, according to data collected by FlightAware.
The plane did several circles around North Holland, chopping and changing its direction before flying out into the North Sea, turning around, and then landing back at the airport.
Only three days later, another diversion happened with the same Boeing jet. On 10 January, the American Airlines flight left Philadelphia International at 10.17am for a journey to Dublin, Ireland. Just over an hour into the flight, it turned back to Philadelphia, unable to complete its transatlantic journey.
The plane flew over New Jersey and out into the Atlantic Ocean before doing a U-turn back to the airport in Philadelphia.
The unlucky streak continued for the aircraft, when two flights cancelled: one Dublin to Philadelphia journey on 13 January and a Barcelona Spain, lfight to Philadelphia the day after.
It is unclear what caused the cancellations, but this was not the end of this Boeing plane's flight turmoil, as two more diversions followed suit.
On 19 January, the plane yet again changed its intended destination of Philadelphia following its departure from Barcelona just after 2pm, spending very little time in the air – landing back in Barcelona following only 34 minutes of travel time.
The Boeing jet completed a flight from Barcelona to Dallas Fort Worth, where American Airlines has a maintenance hangar, on 23 January, and stayed there for several days.
The most recent diversion occurred on 1 February, on a flight from Zurich, Switzerland, to Philadelphia, having departed at 10.39am. It didn't even last an hour in the air, and was back at Zurich's airport at 11.24am after circling the airspace near the airport a number of times.
In between these diversions and cancellations, there has been successful completion of flights, such as a recent flight from Zurich to Philadelphia on Wednesday 5 February, that left on time and completed its eight-and-a-half-hour flight to the United States.