TURBO-BOOST

Bomb Cyclone Jet Stream Shoots British Airways Plane Across Atlantic Faster Than the Speed of Sound

A bomb cyclone that hit the North Atlantic over the weekend created a jet stream that helped a British Airways plane make a record-breaking flight between London and New York.

A British Airways flight crushed a record on Sunday for the fastest-ever subsonic flight between New York and London after a bomb cyclone hit the North Atlantic over the weekend, which created a jet stream that can push planes to velocities greater than the speed of sound. The jet stream, which was dragged by the cyclone into a favorable location for aircrafts, is often sought after by flights as a passageway to boost their travel time. The Boeing 747 aircraft flew overnight from Saturday to Sunday and reached Heathrow airport in London in just four hours and 56 minutes, almost two hours earlier than expected. The flight reached a top speed of 825 mph, which is faster than the speed of sound—767 mph—according to an online flight-tracking service. The flight, however, would not have cracked the sonic barrier because it was being pushed by the air in the jet stream. Flightradar24 announced on its Twitter account, “If we're not mistaken, BA now retakes the fastest subsonic NY-London crossing from Norwegian.”

The British Airlines flight was reportedly just one minute faster than a Virgin Airbus A350 flight, which landed at Heathrow moments later. Storm Ciara hit the United Kingdom over the weekend and caused severe travel disruptions. Two of Europe’s busiest airports—one in Frankfurt, Germany and one in Amsterdam, the Netherlands—reportedly grounded more than 100 flights.