Airplane bounces along Heathrow runway during Storm Gerrit
Julia Buckley, CNN
(CNN) — It’s been a stormy tail end to Christmas for the UK and Ireland, as the countries were hit by Storm Gerrit coming in from the Atlantic on Wednesday, bringing gale force winds and flooding in its wake.
It caused havoc for aviation, with flights being canceled across the countries. Air traffic restrictions saw major delays at Heathrow, with flight cancellations across the UK, including Manchester and Glasgow. The UK’s flag carrier British Airways canceled 13 flights because of the weather. In Ireland, Dublin Airport remained unscathed, though Cork saw four diversions, to Dublin and Shannon.
Planes that managed to take off faced an equally difficult fate: trying to land in the storm.
One American Airlines flight was caught on camera during a particularly bumpy landing at Heathrow on December 27.
The Boeing 777, coming in from Los Angeles, was seen wobbling from side to side as it came down, toppling briefly towards the left, before appearing to bounce or “bunny hop” on the runway before sticking to terra firma and slowing down.
The “insane” landing was filmed by Big Jet TV owner Jerry Dyer, who regularly sets up livestreams at airports around the world to watch flights coming in, and has a particular soft spot for stormy weather.
Dyer told CNN in 2022 that he’s drawn to the “battle” between man and nature during a storm at an airport.
“Whenever there’s windy conditions, stormy conditions, I’m always up at Heathrow,” he said at the time.
“It’s a lot more exciting to watch than aircraft just landing down and touching down and all that kind of stuff. It’s the battle, isn’t it? It’s the forces of nature against an alloy tub with wings on it that we built and we have to control it down onto the ground in Mother Nature’s winds.
“It’s a fantastic thing to watch.”
His livestream of Storm Eunice in 2022, in which planes battled to land at Heathrow despite 122 mile-per-hour winds battering the UK, captivated the entire country.
There were more than 200 severe wind gust reports across Britain and Ireland on Wednesday, with a possible tornado sighting in Stalybridge, Greater Manchester. A level 2 of 3 threat for a severe storm remained for far southeastern Ireland and west-central UK until early Thursday morning, according to the European Storm Forecast Experiment (ESTOFEX).
Streaming the AA flight, Dyer’s famously enthusiastic commentary noted the air “vortex” around the wings as it came in, before lamenting “oh stop it, stop that” as the plane bounced down the runway.
“How he did not go around I just have no idea,” he commented.
Despite the conditions, flight AA134, which had departed LA on December 26, touched down just one minute late – at 11.41 a.m. on December 27, according to flight tracker FlightRadar.
It then took off again around two hours later, making its way to Dallas, where it landed early. Luckily with a different crew.
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