MUMBAI: With a bit of help from the weather gods and tons of skill, the pilots of two Air India flights managed to land their Boeing Dreamliner aircraft into London Heathrow on Friday afternoon even as Storm Eunice left hundreds of flights delayed, cancelled or diverted.
`Big Jet TV’, a YouTube channel, with close to 2 lakh subscribers livestreams aircraft landings and take offs. With the storm whipping the Heathrow runway 27L, it ran live footage of landings including those of Air India flights. “Very skilled Indian pilot there..” , said the commentator of the feed, referring to one of the Air India landings.
Air India flight AI-147 from Hyderabad had Capt Anchit Bhardwaj, while flight AI-145 from Goa had Capt Aditya Rao at the controls, said an Air India official. The cockpit crew on the two flights included first officers Capt Rahul Gupta, Capt Sushant Tare, commander Capt Manmath Routray and trainee commander Capt V Roopa. “Our skilled pilots landed the aircraft safely in London when many other airlines couldn’t,” he added.
