BA Flight Sets Atlantic Subsonic Record
A
British Airways flight has likely broken the fastest-ever subsonic New York to London crossing time after reaching speeds of more than 800mph.
Passenger plane records over the Atlantic tumbled overnight on Saturday and Sunday as
Storm Ciara hurtled towards Britain on the back of a 200mph jet stream.
According to Flightradar24 an online flight tracking service, a British Airways Boeing 747 departing JFK airport on Saturday reached Heathrow in 4 hours 56 minutes shortly after 11.20pm. It was just a minute faster than a Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 flight which landed at Heathrow moments later, and three minutes quicker than another Virgin plane which arrived at 5.12am this morning.
Flights travelling in the opposite direction were taking more than two and a half hours longer.
BA and Virgin smashed the
previous New York to London record held by Norwegian, which reached London Gatwick from JFK in 5 hours 13 minutes in January 2018. The average travel time between New York and London is around 6 hours 13 minutes.
The BA flight reached its peak ground speed of 825mph at the eastern edge of Newfoundland at about 35,000ft, according to Flightradar24's tracking tool.
