Powerful Storm Helps British Airways Aircraft Set New Transatlantic Flight Record

Powerful Storm Ciara on Sunday helped British Airways Aircraft set new transatlantic flight record, flying from New York JFK to London Heathrow in 4 hrs. 56mins.

A British Airways Boeing 747 aircraft, on Sunday, February 9th 2020, set a new flight record, flying from New York JFK to London Heathrow in under five hours.

The currently powerful Storm Ciara over the northern Atlantic helped accelerate the aircraft to speeds of 825 mph (1,327 km/h). This speed is ‘faster than the speed of sound’, which is about 768 miles per hour (1,236 kilometers per hour) at sea level.

Relative to the air, the British Airways plane was travelling slower than 801mph. According to an analyst, modern passenger planes usually travel at about 85% (653 mph) the speed of sound.

Due to the constant strong tailwinds, the BA 747-400 (G-CIVP) arrived at Heathrow Airport in 4 hours and 56 minutes.

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According to Flightradar24, this record time, which is 80 minutes ahead of schedule, beats the previous “5 hours 13 minutes” record held by Norwegian.

Commenting on the new record, the British Airways spokesman:

“We always prioritize 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.”

The previous high-speed record of a modern jetliner was set by a Norwegian Boeing 787 in 2018. The jet completed the journey from New York to London in 5 hours 13 minutes, cruising at around 776mph.

Concorde jet

The fastest transatlantic crossing belongs to British Airways Concorde jet. The supersonic aircraft flew from New York to London in just “2 hours 52 minutes” and 59 seconds, on February 7th 1996, hitting a top speed of 1,350mph.

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