Cabin crew accidentally captured ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ footage of rocket launch

A cabin crew member accidentally caught a 'once in a lifetime shot' from the plane window of the lift off of SpaceX rocket ship Falcon 9.

The flight attendant later shared the clip to their TikTok account @chefpinkpr, along with the caption: "My plane flew by Cape Canaveral and caught SpaceX Falcon 9 launch!"

“While working my flight we witnessed this one in a lifetime phenomenon!” they wrote.

The video quickly gained attraction across the platform, eventually garnering over a whopping 41 million views.

The crew member accidentally got a front seat to the SpaceX launch while the aircraft was flying over Cape Canaveral in Florida in late 2022.

The video shows a clear picture of the rocket steadily making an upper trajectory towards the sky, leaving a trail of fire in it's wake.

TikTok users were quick to share their awe after viewing the video, with more than 28,000 comments appearing beneath.

“Wow, can’t believe they launched that with a commercial flight that close,” another posted.

TikTok/@chefpinkpr

“Imagine watching this and just seeing a rocket coming right at you,” somebody added.

“I would definitely be on the other side of the plane,” another wrote.

Elon Musk's SpaceX launch are believed to be punching hole in Earth's ionosphere.

What's the Ionopshere? Well, I googled for us, don't worry.

It’s a layer around Earth that consists of the fourth state of matter, plasma, and a sea of electrically charged particles at around 50-400 miles above the surface of Earth.

Even though it sounds worrying and doom-bound, holes made within the ionopshere layer only last around a day before regenerating as the sun rises the next day.

In 2017, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched carrying Taiwan’s Formosat-5 satellite and induced 'gigantic circular shock acoustic waves' in the ionosphere five minutes after liftoff.

Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images

A study published in the journal Space Weather found that about ten or so minutes after lift off, a giant hole was created in the ionosphere which scientists detailed in their study.

They wrote: “The rocket-exhaust plume subsequently created a large-scale ionospheric plasma hole (~900km in diameter) with 10-70 percent TEC depletions in comparison with the reference days.”

While it all sounds very complex for us common folk, it's still cool that actual footage of a SpaceX was captured by one of us tiny humans down here.

Topics: SpaceX, Travel, Technology

Chelsea Connor

Chelsea is a Journalist for UNILAD. Before this she worked as a Journalist and Comedy Writer for seven years, working for companies such as Newsquest, NationalWorld and Samahoma Productions. She became a qualified journalist back in 2017, completing a NCTJ at Liverpool City College.

@theccjourno