Cargospotter/YouTubeAviation travel can be a little bit alarming at the best of times, particularly for those of us who don’t posses the physics knowledge to understand quite how a flying tin can full of people, luggage and disappointing plane dinners can stay airborn for hours on end.
But you can bet dry white bread rolls were the last thing on the minds of the poor passengers on this Emirates flight coming into Düsseldorf airport in a hard crosswind.
You can watch the full dramatic landing play out in the clip below:
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The Airbus A380 was captured on film by a keen aviation videographer, as it careened through the sky over the German airport and came to a shaky stop, eventually delivering the passengers and its cargo safely.
Although there may have been a few nauseated passengers, chances are most people would rather risk landing in that weather and being reunited with terra firma that staying aloft in the storm in some sort of real life Speed nightmare.
The pilot’s skill has been so widely praised, the footage is now trending on YouTube, having been uploaded by Martin Bogdan onto his Cargospotter channel, which has documented thousands of landings over the years.
Cargospotter/YouTubeMartin, who hails from Düsseldorf, Germany, wrote:
I have filmed a few thousand crosswind landings at several airports in Europe within the past years, but this Airbus A380 crosswind landing was extremly [sic] hard and extraordinary.
At first it looked like a pretty normal crosswind approach but after touchdown the pilots tried to align with the runway which looked pretty incredible.
The 25-year-old plane spotter continued:
I have never seen such a tremendous reaction of an airplane after a touchdown. You can see that the pilots tried to align with the runway by using the tail rudder and luckily it worked out. This video shows the incredible skills of the pilots.
Even after an unexpected wind gust after touchdown they managed to re-align with the runway. Incredible job by the pilots !! Watching an Airbus 380 is always interesting and a pleasure to watch. I would realy like to know what the passengars thought during the Arrival today at Düsseldorf. [sic]
However, some of the YouTube commentators were less quick to compliment the pilots’ skills.
One user, who claims to be an Airbus pilot too, wrote:
I’m sorry but this is not a good example of crosswind landing. The pilot in command used the rudder way too much. That kind of overcontrol is not necessary, in fact in this example it is obviously dangerous. Anyway, as they say any landing is good as long as you can use the aircraft again.
Paul Ennison echoed his concern, adding:
I can only support what the colleague says! When you see ‘aircraft nose going left’ at the same time as a left rudder deflection, it is not a gust, but pilot action. So, clearly, inexperienced pilot.
Inexperienced pilot or not, thankfully, the plane was reunited with Earth – relatively – harmoniously with no harm done.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.