AUSTIN, Texas — Passengers aboard a commercial flight bound for Central America experienced an unexpected detour over the Gulf Coast on Saturday afternoon as SpaceX’s Starship Flight 15 returned from orbit.
Copa Airlines Flight CM716, a Boeing 737-800 carrying registration HP-1834CMP, departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) at 2:47 p.m. CST en route to Tocumen International Airport (PTY) in Panama City. Roughly into the cruise phase of its journey, while flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet over Louisiana, the aircraft executed a sudden right turn away from its standard southward trajectory across the Gulf of Mexico.
Shortly before the course correction, Copa Airlines flight operations transmitted an ACARS message to the captain advising that the flight’s routing had been altered due to an active Airspace Flow Program (AFP) triggered by the atmospheric re-entry of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 15.
Space Traffic Meets Commercial Aviation
Airspace Flow Programs are traffic management initiatives used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to meter air traffic and reroute aircraft around constrained airspace—traditionally due to severe weather, though increasingly used to manage commercial space launch and re-entry corridors.
Because Starship Flight 15 was returning from Low Earth Orbit for a historic catch attempt at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, its descent corridor cut across high-traffic aviation routes over Mexico, Texas, and the Gulf Coast. Rerouting CM716 to the west kept the Boeing 737 well clear of temporary flight restrictions and potential debris hazard zones during the spacecraft’s high-speed descent.
Flight CM716 continued safely to Panama City along its adjusted corridor without incident.
Timeline: Starship Flight 15 Re-entry (Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026)
Starship Flight 15 lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Friday, November 13, at 4:47:36 p.m. CST (22:47:36 UTC). After completing 14 orbits of Earth over roughly 22.5 hours, Ship 42 (“Don’t Panic”) began its return sequence on Saturday afternoon:
Final Return Checkpoint
1:29 PM CST (T+20:41:55)
SpaceX flight controllers conduct the final go/no-go poll, passing over the last Pacific Ocean splashdown contingency near Hawaii and committing Ship 42 to an overland re-entry toward Texas.
Deorbit Burn
2:23 PM CST (T+21:35:57)
Ship 42 fires its Raptor engines for 10 seconds to slow down and drop out of orbit, putting the spacecraft on a precise trajectory over Mexico and the Gulf Coast.
Copa CM716 Departs Austin
2:47 PM CST
Copa Airlines Flight CM716 takes off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport bound for Panama City just minutes before Starship hits the upper atmosphere.
Atmospheric Entry
2:58 PM CST (T+22:10:46)
Starship begins encountering Earth’s upper atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, triggering peak heating and active FAA airspace restrictions along the Gulf corridor.
Transonic & Subsonic Transition
3:17 PM CST (T+22:29:34)
Having survived peak re-entry heating, Ship 42 decelerates below the speed of sound (Mach 1) as it approaches the South Texas coast.
Landing Burn & Tower Catch
3:20 PM CST (T+22:32:16)
Ship 42 ignites three Raptor engines, executes its landing flip maneuver over Starbase, and is successfully caught by the Orbital Launch Pad 2 tower arms—marking the first-ever recovery of an orbital Starship upper stage.
