An A380 – one of the largest jets in the sky – has just completed a move that aviation producers say they have “never seen before” while landing during England’s Storm Eunice. The A380, which, according to Airbus, fits 545 passengers in a standard 4-class configuration, appeared to hover midair, while coming in to land at Heathrow.
Speedbird TV filmed the video. They posted it on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, with producers commenting: “Never have I seen that, and I have been live-streaming aviation for 10 years!”
In the video you can see the Qatar Airways A380 hovering and floating as the pilot struggles with strong wind.
It inches closer to the runway but at the last moment, the pilots abort. According to social media users in the comments (and confirmed by Speedbird TV admins), after trying three times they finally succeed in landing.
Fans of the page were duly impressed. One wrote: “Oh my goodness! I’ve never seen anything like that before!!!”
Another wrote: “What a beauty she is.”
Further comments included: “Wow, wouldn’t want to be on that plane,” “some great landings today but nothing comes close to Etihad’s 380 landing in Storm Dennis two years ago” and “bet it was the Shortest runway stop ever when it did land minus any braking.”
“The pilots really earned their pay today…”
In the lead up to storm Eunice, Britain’s weather service warned of wind gusts exceeding 144 kilometres per hour in highly exposed coastal areas (and forecasted strong winds all across the country).
The Met Office has said a 196kph gust was recorded on the Isle of Wight – “provisionally” (per the ABC) the strongest-ever wind recorded in England.
The ABC reports that “at least nine people have died after the second major storm in a week smashed through the UK and northern Europe as high winds felled trees, cancelled flights and train services and ripped sections off the roof of London’s O2 Arena.”
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