Pilot draws 24-kilometre-long penis in the sky after being diverted from Catania airport

28.08.2023 - 13:55 / euronews.com

A Lufthansa pilot drew a penis-shaped flight path in the sky last week after being diverted from Catania airport in Sicily.

The 24-kilometre-long pattern was spotted by amused aviation fans on FlightRadar24. 

The aircraft left Frankfurt in Germany at 1.45 pm on 28 July and reportedly attempted to land at Catania twice before its course was diverted.

It took just over 16 minutes to circle in the sky off the east coast of Sicily - a manoeuvre that created the penis shape - before returning to its original flight path and continuing to Malta.

Local Italian media claimed that the disgruntled pilot drew the phallic flight path in protest at the diversion but officials have said that it wasn’t intentional.

They claim that the shape was created accidentally after flight LH306 manoeuvred away from the island.

Numerous flights have been cancelled, delayed or diverted from Catania in recent weeks after a fire closed one terminal at the airport. 

SAC, the company that manages the airport, has been criticised for its slow response and poor communication with airlines. They said that a sudden change in wind was responsible for this diversion.

“'Other planes also tried to land a first time but had failed so they had to go around and then they managed to do it,' SAC told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

Lufthansa told newspaper Corriere della Sera that wind shear meant it was “not possible to land safely in Catania”.

“For this reason, the pilot had to remain in a holding position before once again trying to land which was not successful.”

It isn’t the first time that a pilot has drawn a penis shape in the sky. All kinds of planes from commercial flights to military aircraft have been caught tracing rude patterns.

An Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) helicopter took a phallic flightpath over the island of Comino earlier this year. FlightRadar24 tweeted a picture of the unusual patterns with the caption “Meanwhile in Malta…”.

The AFM told the Times of Malta said that the flight pattern had been “printed out of context” as the tracking showed the helicopter flying at low altitude and not the entire flight path.

In 2022, a US military plane accidentally drew a sky penis near a Russian base in Syria.

The US Airforce also insisted that the incident was unintentional saying that it didn’t believe that the crew had “acted inappropriately”.