A
Flight has broken the subsonic (slower than the
Speed of sound)
Record for travel between New
York and
London thanks to
Storm Ciara.
The New
York to
London subsonic
Flight Speed Record has been broken. Credit: PA
British Airways Flight BA112 left JFK airport and crossed the Atlantic overnight, touching down at Heathrow in just 4hrs 56mins, according to online
Flight tracking service
Flight Radar 24.
The Boeing 747 was just two minutes faster than a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 flight, which landed at Heathrow shortly afterwards.
To put these times into perspective, the average
Flight from New
York to
London takes 6hrs 13mins.
Prior to these flights, the
Record was held by Norwegian, which reached
London Gatwick from JFK in 5hrs 13mins in January 2018.
The record-breaking flights were aided in no small part by
Storm Ciara and its 200mph jet stream, with the BA
Flight reaching a peak ground
Speed of 825mph at the eastern edge of Newfoundland, at about 35,000ft.
The Speed displayed is ground speed. Mach is a function of airspeed. As the air around the aircraft moves faster in the same direction as the aircraft, its Speed relative to the ground increases, but its Speed relative to the air does not and it stays below Mach 1.
– Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 9, 2020
Speaking to The Independent, a BA spokesperson said: “We always prioritise safety over
Speed records, but our highly trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to
London well ahead of time.”
A BA spokesperson added on Twitter that the company didn’t know yet if the crew were aware of their record-breaking feat.
But of course, while the
Storm helped people travelling from west to east over the Atlantic to save time, it had the opposite impact for those travelling from east to west, with some flights from
London to New
York taking one and a half hours longer.
Indeed, passengers on the record-breaking
Flight can consider themselves very lucky indeed, as they’re about the only people in the world who’ve had their travel plans improved by
Storm Ciara.
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