Two Air India pilots have earned praise on social media for expertly landing their Boeing Dreamliner aircraft at the Heathrow airport in London on Friday despite Storm Eunice forcing hundreds of flights to be delayed, diverted, or cancelled.
At the controls were Captain Aditya Rao and Captain Anchit Bhardwaj, who demonstrated expertise and skill by safely landing the aircraft.
Their skill was caught on camera by Big Jet TV, a YouTube channel that livestreams aircraft landings and take-offs, as the storm buffeted Heathrow’s Runway 27L. In the video, presenter Jerry Dyer praised the Indian pilots for being “very skilled”.
Air India also heaped praise on the pilots for landing in London when several other airlines could not.
Dyer began a livestream on his channel of the trajectory of multiple pilots — from those flying Emirates British Airways — as they tried to land their aircraft at Heathrow amid the raging storm in a breath-taking documentation of bumpy landings. The livestream, which began on Friday, had a peak viewership of over 7.1 million.
Storm Eunice forced many planes to abort landings or circle around the airport in a ‘go-around’. The storm sparked London’s first-ever ‘red’ weather warning on Friday. It was among the most powerful tempests to hit Europe since the Great Storm, which hit the UK and northern France in 1987. The UK’s Met office said that the storm had been responsible for provisionally the highest-ever gust recorded in England.
The storm has already forced several trains, flights, and ferries across Western Europe to be severely disrupted. It cut off power to over 200,000 homes in England and 80,000 businesses and homes in Ireland with millions huddled in their homes for shelter. At least 14 people have died from falling debris, falling trees, and high winds in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, and Germany.
