Pilot pulls off extraordinary ‘crabbing’ plane landing at Heathrow during Storm Darragh
The plane appears to reach the ground at an angle to counteract strong winds
Kass
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A live aviation streamer was left shocked by a pilot’s expert landing at London Heathrow amid the strong Storm Darragh winds.
YouTuber Big Jet TV was filming various planes on approach to Heathrow on Saturday while strong winds from Storm Darragh were reaching speeds of up to 96mph around the country.
At Heathrow, the wind gusts were climbing to 38mph at around 4pm on Saturday, according to the Met Office.
Several planes captured on camera had to attempt landing a couple of times, by going around in a circle and aiming for the tarmac again, while others struggled to keep a steady landing and bounced on the runway.
However, just before 4pm, a Malaysia Airlines plane approached the airport. The streamer exclaimed that the plane was “high” before flying over the runway.
“That’s a big old speed up there, man, flipping heck,” the streamer said. “I thought he was going around.”
The plane then descends and appears to land at a sideways angle on the runway rather than facing forward, but once landed hardly bounced and immediately turned to face straight ahead and drove down the tarmac.
“Woah, easy, blimey O’Reilly,” the streamer said. “Wow, huge swing there.”
“Is that to bleed off speed, maybe? That was a massive crab into the land.”
The streamer appears to be referring to a crabbing technique, or what is called crosswind landing, when a pilot comes to the runway at an angle, pointing slightly into the wind, to counteract the high gusts that may affect its course, according to Pilot Institute.
The skill is known to be hard to master, as flying toward the runway but not pointing towards it feels unnatural.
“Awesome man,” the streamer concluded. “What an awesome shot.”
Other landings were not as smooth as the Malaysia Airlines approach. Big Jet TV captured another plane struggling to land, with the aircraft battling the winds as it swayed from side to side, before a bumping landing on the runway.
British Airways cancelled more than 100 short-haul domestic and European flights from London Heathrow, including multiple flights to and from Paris, Edinburgh, Jersey, Milan, Nice and Vienna, while transatlantic flights from the US were diverted to Brussels.
Storm Darragh battered the UK on Saturday, with flights and trains cancelled and hundreds of thousands of homes left without power.
Winds of up to 96mph hit the country and caused major disruption to travel as well as leading to two people losing their lives.
A rare Met Office red warning for parts of Wales and southwest England came into effect on Saturday morning at 1am, with the powerful winds resulting in a government “risk to life” alert issued to three million people.
For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast
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