BA flight breaks New York to London speed record as it reaches 825mph in ‘Storm of the Century’

A BRITISH Airways jet has today smashed the record for the fastest subsonic New York to London flight – thanks to incredible storm force winds. The Boeing 747-436 reached speeds of 825mph at 35,000ft as it was carried on a jet stream boosted by Storm Ciara – which has been battering the UK. BA Flight […]

A BRITISH Airways jet has today smashed the record for the fastest subsonic New York to London flight – thanks to incredible storm force winds.

The Boeing 747-436 reached speeds of 825mph at 35,000ft as it was carried on a jet stream boosted by Storm Ciara – which has been battering the UK.

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BA Flight 112 took just four hours and 56 minutes for the transatlantic trip and touched down at Heathrow Airport 80 minutes ahead of schedule.

According to Flightradar24 – an online tracking service – it beat a previous record of five hours 13 minutes held by Norwegian Airways.

Experts say the average flight time for the journey is around six hours and 13 minutes.

The pilot was apparently able to utilise wind speeds topping 250mph in the jet stream, a band of air currents pilots ride to increase their speed.

Flightradar24 tweeted: ‘Fastest across the Atlantic tonight from New York to London so far is #BA112 at 4hr56m.

‘If we’re not mistaken, BA now retakes the fastest subsonic NY-London crossing from Norwegian.’

Aviation consultant and former BA pilot Alastair Rosenschein told the BBC the aeroplane reached a “phenomenal speed”.

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

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

However, despite travelling faster than the speed of sound the plane would not have broken the sound barrier as it was helped along by fast-moving air.

Relative to the air, it was travelling slower than 801mph despite being given a huge boost by Ciara – dubbed the ‘Storm of the Century’ in the UK.

British Airways 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 still belongs to BA Concorde, which flew from New York to London in two hours 52 minutes in 1996 hitting speeds of 1,350mph.