Ain't no winds too strong for Arab airliners, it seems.
Earlier this month, a Middle East Airlines pilot epically landed the plane at London's Heathrow airport amidst strong winds ... only to be followed by yet another historic landing by Etihad pilots on Saturday. Both these touchdowns should go down in history books for future aviators in the industry.
We already gave the ins and outs of the MEA landing, and now we're here to give a breakdown of the Etihad Airways one.
Over the weekend, the UAE's second-largest airline Etihad Airways made international headlines after braving high winds brought to London by none other than Storm Dennis. The pilot of the aircraft pulled off an exceptional landing at Heathrow Airport; footage flaunting the victorious landing of an Airbus A380 made the rounds online moments after it happened.
The plane was forced to land sideways, but it was straight-up legendary.
The powerful headwinds caused the plane to hover sideways over the runway as it attempted a "crab landing," a strategy pilots use to fly the plane when strong winds are in control. During a crab landing, the nose of the aircraft points towards the wind, while the aircraft itself moves towards the runway.
The most recent incident came as hundreds of flights into and out of the UK were suspended on Saturday because of Storm Dennis. EasyJet, for example, had to cancel more than 230 flights, according to The Independent.
"Weather conditions at London Heathrow during the recent storm event, Dennis, caused some very challenging conditions for all pilots," an Etihad spokesman said, according to The National.
"A combination of very sophisticated aircraft technologies and pilot training today allow aircraft to operate in conditions that they couldn't 20 years ago."
In recent days, parts of the UK were struck with winds of more than 90mph, and heavy rainfall submerged other places.
Storm Dennis is the second to hit the UK in recent weeks; the first was Storm Ciara, which was the root cause of the difficult, yet successful, MEA landing on Feb. 9.
According to CNN, Storm Ciara was responsible for the cancelation of hundreds of flights all across Europe. Over 100 flights in Frankfurt, Germany and Amsterdam, Netherlands fell victim to the storm.