I'm not sure where to put this so I'll leave it to the mods. Also, apologies if it's been ppruned before.
Look at Stansted Airport (EGSS) on Google Earth and draw a line along the extended centreline of 23. Zoom in at the point where the line crosses the M11 and you will see an Easyjet B737 on final to 05 (2.3 miles to go).
OK. So what?
Go back to the runway and zoom in on the second exit for 23 and you will see not one but two Ryanair B737's exiting
together.
What is happening here? Two aircraft - one exiting and one waiting to exit with a third aircraft arriving from the opposite direction
The Easyjet is about a 45 seconds from touchdown.
Is it the exact moment when a runway direction change is taking place or do they sometime accept opposing arrivals at Stansted? If so, is it normal to leave so little time to clear the runway?
Also it seems evident that the second Ryanair landed very close behind the first, certainly well before the first aircraft had reached its intended exit.
The Easyjet on final has been on Google for more than a year to my knowledge so the incident happened at least that long ago. Also, I can't find any obvious breaks in the picture so I have to assume that it is taken from a single satellite image.
Any comments?