MUMBAI: With a little help from the weather gods and tons of skill, the pilots of two Air India Flights your Boeing. managed to take off dreamliner in plane London Heathrow Hundreds of flights were delayed, canceled or diverted when Storm Younis hit Friday afternoon.
‘Big Jet TV’, a YouTube channel with close to 2 lakh subscribers, is livestreaming the landing and take-off of planes. With the storm on Heathrow runway 27L, it played live footage of the landing, including Air India flights. “Very skilled Indian pilot there..”, said the Feed’s commentator, referring to an Air India landing.
An Air India official said that Air India flight AI-147 from Hyderabad had Captain Anchit Bhardwaj, while flight AI-145 from Goa had Captain Aditya Rao. The cockpit crew on two flights consisted of the first officer. Captain Rahul GuptaCaptain Sushant Tare, Commander Captain Manmath Routray and Trainee Commander Captain V Roopa. “Our skilled pilots landed the plane safely in London, while many other airlines could not,” he said.
But the approach and landing in such windy conditions could not have been done without a little help from the weather gods, the pilots say. Winds of 196 kmph were recorded on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England, making it the worst storm in three decades, according to the UK Met Office. Aviation weather reports for London Heathrow released late afternoon showed winds between 55-60 kmph, gusting to 85-90 kmph.
What decides whether a pilot will continue with an approach and landing or choose the weather conditions at that particular time. A senior commander said: “The pilot has the right to continue landing if the cross wind and head wind components are within safe limits.” But weather conditions like wind speed, gusts, visibility can change from minute to minute. “The next aircraft in line to land may not encounter similar weather conditions and may require pilots to turn around for a missed approach, a second attempt at landing, the safest maneuver in such conditions. Comparison of a landing The weather conditions vary, there is an element of luck involved. But luck alone won’t cut it. To land in such weather conditions, the pilot-in-flight also has to be highly skilled. Which is what happened with both Air India pilots,” he said.
Commenting on the footage, a senior Boeing 777 commander with Air India said: “It looks like a job well done. Although the Dreamliner shook a bit given the weather conditions, footage showed the aircraft remained stable during the last 100 ft. More details will be known later. The Flight Safety Department ‘Flight Operations Quality Assurance’ of Air India monitors the __flight data, ie. “If the data shows that the pilots were off course, they would be removed from the roster, pending investigation. This is a loss of salary for a few months. So the pilots have no reason to continue with the unsafe approach and landing.”
Meanwhile, as the storm swept across Britain, airlines canceled hundreds of flights, mostly domestic flights bound for European destinations. According to media reports, airlines on Friday canceled more than 430 flights across the UK, with London Heathrow being the worst affected airport.
‘Big Jet TV’, a YouTube channel with close to 2 lakh subscribers, is livestreaming the landing and take-off of planes. With the storm on Heathrow runway 27L, it played live footage of the landing, including Air India flights. “Very skilled Indian pilot there..”, said the Feed’s commentator, referring to an Air India landing.
An Air India official said that Air India flight AI-147 from Hyderabad had Captain Anchit Bhardwaj, while flight AI-145 from Goa had Captain Aditya Rao. The cockpit crew on two flights consisted of the first officer. Captain Rahul GuptaCaptain Sushant Tare, Commander Captain Manmath Routray and Trainee Commander Captain V Roopa. “Our skilled pilots landed the plane safely in London, while many other airlines could not,” he said.
But the approach and landing in such windy conditions could not have been done without a little help from the weather gods, the pilots say. Winds of 196 kmph were recorded on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England, making it the worst storm in three decades, according to the UK Met Office. Aviation weather reports for London Heathrow released late afternoon showed winds between 55-60 kmph, gusting to 85-90 kmph.
What decides whether a pilot will continue with an approach and landing or choose the weather conditions at that particular time. A senior commander said: “The pilot has the right to continue landing if the cross wind and head wind components are within safe limits.” But weather conditions like wind speed, gusts, visibility can change from minute to minute. “The next aircraft in line to land may not encounter similar weather conditions and may require pilots to turn around for a missed approach, a second attempt at landing, the safest maneuver in such conditions. Comparison of a landing The weather conditions vary, there is an element of luck involved. But luck alone won’t cut it. To land in such weather conditions, the pilot-in-flight also has to be highly skilled. Which is what happened with both Air India pilots,” he said.
Commenting on the footage, a senior Boeing 777 commander with Air India said: “It looks like a job well done. Although the Dreamliner shook a bit given the weather conditions, footage showed the aircraft remained stable during the last 100 ft. More details will be known later. The Flight Safety Department ‘Flight Operations Quality Assurance’ of Air India monitors the __flight data, ie. “If the data shows that the pilots were off course, they would be removed from the roster, pending investigation. This is a loss of salary for a few months. So the pilots have no reason to continue with the unsafe approach and landing.”
Meanwhile, as the storm swept across Britain, airlines canceled hundreds of flights, mostly domestic flights bound for European destinations. According to media reports, airlines on Friday canceled more than 430 flights across the UK, with London Heathrow being the worst affected airport.
,