British Airways flight breaks trans-Atlantic speed record

A British Airways service from New York City to London has broken the speed record with a flight faster than sound – without even trying.

A British Airways jet has broken records as the fastest trans-Atlantic flight since Concorde, with a little help from a storm.

The Boeing 747-400 service from New York JFK to London Heathrow landed 80 minutes ahead of schedule.

Riding the stormy jet stream air currents, the plane hit top speeds of 1327km/h over the Atlantic. The tail wind reduced the flight to just under five hours, at four hours and 56 minutes, the New Zealand Herald reported.

New York to London in 4hrs 56 mins on BA’s supersonic Jumbo Jet, helped in no small part to storm Ciara no doubt 😀 pic.twitter.com/cLM5n7qxBm

— Jenny King 🇪🇺 (@JenNorthy) February 9, 2020

The Flightradar24 tracking website showed the plane beat the previous record, held by a jet flown by low cost carrier Norwegian, by 17 minutes.

As the UK is battered by Storm Ciara, air passengers could have enjoyed relative calm in the high winds.

According to aviation consult and former British Airways pilot Alastair Rosenschein, high winds and plane speed are often hard to perceive for passengers on-board.

“Turbulence in those jet streams can be quite severe, but you can also find it can be a very smooth journey,” he told the BBC.

The British Airways flight was given a push by storm Ciara. Picture: Flightradar24

“The pilot will have sat their aircraft in the core of the jet stream, and at this time of year it’s quite strong.”

Aviation enthusiasts were excited to point out that the speed was 90km/h faster than sound and, technically, a supersonic flight.

However, relative to the wind speed, the plane was only cruising at a normal pace of around 900km/h.

Passengers did not experience a “sonic boom” of breaking the sound barrier.

It was technically a supersonic flight. Picture: AP/Matt Dunham, File

A British Airways spokesman said: “We always prioritise safety over speed records.

“Our highly trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time.”

The fastest transatlantic crossing belongs to BA Concorde, which flew from New York to London in two hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds in 1996 – hitting a top speed of 2172km/h.

This article originally appeared on the New Zealand Herald and was reproduced with permission