What happened when commercial plane accidentally went faster than the speed of sound
Topics: Travel, Science, Technology
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: eejay62/Getty
Topics: Travel, Science, Technology
A flight managed to get to its destination a little ahead of schedule... the trick was just to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Getting to your destination early on a long haul flight in general is always a good thing.
Like, great, we can start the vacation a little bit earlier, top result.
However, one flight from the US towards the UK and Europe ended up arriving a lot earlier - due to unexpectedly zipping across the Atlantic faster than expected.
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Last Month, one Virgin Atlantic flight from Washington to London reportedly hit a top speed of over 800 miles per hour (mph), which is well over the speed of sound (767mph)
It's the sort of speed that hasn't been seen in passenger jet travel since the Concorde fleet retired back in 2003.
This speed boost meant passengers arrived safe and sound 45 minutes ahead of schedule.
The cause were huge winds in the Atlantic jet stream, giving planes an enormous tailwind.
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson addressed the incident and explained that airlines prepare for this kind of thing.
The spokesperson said “At Virgin Atlantic, we assess all factors involving weather including jet streams. Utilizing the strong tail winds associated with the jet stream increases aircraft fuel efficiency, reduces emissions and can benefit our customers with early arrivals to their destination.
“When planning the aircraft’s route and flight level, the safety and comfort of our customers and crew is always our top priority and is never compromised.”
Despite this massive speed by the plane, experts have said the aircraft technically didn’t break the sound barrier.
That metric is actually relative, and the air around the plane was also travelling really quickly - meaning the aircraft itself was actually moving at its normal cruise speed.
According to the US National Weather Service, some of those winds were as fast as a crazy 265 miles per hour, so the boost being given to airliners was significant.
While you probably never thought about this, wind is often a factor in plane travel times.
This is the reason many two-way trips over the Atlantic don’t tend to have the same flight time.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are plenty of scientists looking into the broad increase in windspeed averages in the Atlantic jet stream right now, and one very prominent theory is that it's all to do with climate change.
Some scary stuff, right?