A British Airways plane was forced to abort a landing at the Heathrow airport due to strong crosswind moments before touching down on the runway. The scary video surfaced on the internet highlighting the force of crosswinds and quick decision making of the pilot. Strong crosswinds often test pilot’s capabilities and can be a major cause of concern for a plane’s safety.
According to Sky News, the jet arrived from Aberdeen, but the pilot abandoned the scheduled landing as the aircraft was buffeted by strong winds caused by Storm Corrie. A video footage shows the plane beginning a bumpy ascent before the right wing lifts into the air, sending the aircraft careening down the runway at a dramatic angle.
While crosswinds trouble the smaller aircrafts more than dual-aisle planes, the strong gust of wind can shake even the biggest aircraft. This is especially hard for passengers as most of the aviation accidents are recorded at the time of take off or landing.
The moment a British Airways plane traveling from Aberdeen, Scotland, aborted an attempt to land on the runway at London's Heathrow Airport due to strong winds pic.twitter.com/fAyzEKdTvy
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 1, 2022
While pilot may choose to abort landing in such a case, it also raises questions on one’s competency and hence, it has been seen that many pilots fight with these crosswinds to land the plane in one go.
However, in this case, the pilot made the decision to abort, before successfully landing the plane at the second attempt. Had it been otherwise, the plane could have suffered hard landing or the wrong approach angle due to the winds could have led to the plane overshooting the runway.
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Nevertheless, the plane landed safely and that would have been such a relief for the passengers. Reports suggest that in case of strong crosswinds, the pilots often perform a go around, try another landing and in case of failure, go to the nearest available airport, causing trouble for the travellers.
With inputs from Reuters
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