Commercial flight doing turn-around?
 

(If you can find a better subforum for this, lemme know... put it here because it's a learning thing)

Since I'm a newbie and don't know, I was curious what's going on with this FDX flight:
FlightAware > Federal Express Corporation (FX) #1710 Flight Tracker
FlightAware > Flight Track Log > FDX1710 > 26-Apr-2011 > KIND-KBOS
What got me to check was not FlightAware, but the fact he flew over unusually low.
Why would a flight depart, then about 10 minutes later, turn back (BOS wasn't reporting delays or grounding flights at origin, and layman's guess is by the time he got to BOS, the weather would have passed), and then just fall off FlightAware's tracking to "estimated"? I never see that for commercial flights.
(in case the data is gone or updated with another flight, he was heading from IND to BOS, got up to 4,000, then turned around and headed back)

Unfortunately I didn't catch it on ATC, so I don't know what's going on.
I'm just curious what would make him turn back. (I'm sure FlightAware isn't the best source for flight tracking... if he needed to land, wouldn't he have had to change his flight plan? Or is just tower clearance enough while he was still that close?)

May seem like a dumb question to ask, but I'd rather ask than make guesses at it. Only way I'm gonna know. :B

I guess what I'm asking is, from this situation, what would make a pilot turn back (weather? aircraft problems?), and what's the procedure for having to do so?

There is any number of reason he could have had to turn around. I would guess weather wasnt the issue. These guys have dispatchers would take care of the weather checks, and they could have avoided storms and held to wait for better landing conditions at the destination or proceeded on to the alternate.

My guess is a maintenance issue. I have had it happen on multiple occasions... take off, see something isnt right and simply request vectors back to the airport. You dont need a change in flight plan, you simply need to ask the current controller for vectors to where you need to go. They will probably ask if you have an emergency and need assistance, but you can tell em no if you dont need it.