Why didnt they just return to Dubai or fly to another airport in the area.
I think its the fault of the pilots.
As example turkish airlines flew the whole route to istanbul back.
We don't know what information and consideration they have for not diverting to other airport.
Except for the gusty wind and unknown possible threat of wind-shear, the ceiling and visibility should be legal to conduct the approach.
Especially with quite strong wind, it is common for the weather system to be moving away.
Even after airborne for 6 hours, the plane still carry 2 hours worth of fuel.
I believe when he's down to minimum diversion fuel he will eventually divert.
Until they are down to minimum diversion fuel, it is not mandatory to initiate diversion, if they think they could make it to destination.
In 2014 a similar thing happend to me (no crash but there could have been one). Here is a memoir I wrote after the accident which explains how my aviation inerest sparked. I knew about AS before this but I never gave it a serious try and I almost saw it as impossible.
By looking out the window we saw a big city with many lights. My mother who had lived in Bucharest could quickly identify the mystery city to be Bucharest. Later we could hear the gear going down and the plane started it´s flare. The intense shaking continued and the plane was still not straight. You could feel how the strong cross wind pulled the plane to the side and the pilots battling against it even using the vertical rudder . On our third attempt on 1 final we had a different feeling, a feeling of falling freely. I can still remember that feeling. Then the tail started dropping and and the nose started lifting as we could see the rain smashing in the window and we could really feel the wind. After a moment we realised that we were in a stall. After about 5 seconds we could hear the the powerful IAE W2500 roaring and the aircraft slowly but firmly recuperating again. You could feel how the plane was leveling and launching out of the free fall. The pilot climbed a couple of thousand feet and the purser made an announcement: “As you can see we will not be able to land in Bucharest so we will be landing in Constanta in 45 minutes”. Passengers were fainting and vomiting but the cabin crew did not move out of their seats. Passengers started passing around water and other food from other passengers and shouting at the cabin crew to help, but nothing happened. We landed in Constanta safely and easily at 2 pm. The airport, which otherwise is a US Air Force base, came into full operation taking our luggage and doing passport controls. Four ambulances came to take fainted passengers.
We saved about 1 hour of travel time as we already had arrived to our final destination. This was the worst storm of the year hitting Romania and we were the first plane not being able to land after the storm broke out. After our flight the airport went onto shutdown and no flights landed until 24 hours later.
I am happy that our pilot did understand that an landing would have been stupid.
What a scary experience. It's good to be alive. It could be a downdraft from a wind-shear which is known to exist near thunderstorms cells. Modern airliners built with stall prevention and would required thousands feets before it recover from a stall. Something one could not afford when in low level altitude approaching the airport for intention to land. Pilots are trained to recognize the area of potential wind-shear, through weather report and forecast, pireps, visual observation - which will not be possible during night, on-board wind component and ground speed monitoring, in addition to on-board weather and on-board predictive wind-shear system. When you recognize the sign of potential wind-shear in your path to the airport, cancel the approach and hold if you carry enough fuel, wait for the weather to get better. If it's just the beginning of it, you might don't have enough fuel to hold so long, then just divert and be safe. You can always talk later to the chief explaining your reason while you are alive down at the comfortable airline office.
But as a passenger I would not mind if the pilot announces something like: there is a thunderstorm and possibility of downdraft/microburst/windshear. We shall not take any risks and divert straight away".
I am pretty sure the passengers of that FlyDubai flight would have agreed with me.
Aviate - Navigate - Communicate, in that order.
You don't want to communicate while you are busy aviating and navigating the airplane. Under intense pressure, the pilot's voice could be agitating instead of calming.
Also there are numerous matters that should be taken into consideration, complexity of a diversion instead of waiting for weather to improve, flight time limitation for flight crew, passengers accommodation - custom and immigration services at diversion airport, etc etc. With so much fuel carried on-board, it's more reasonable to wait until last minute before initiating diversion, imo.