British Airways 747 just set subsonic speed record for Atlantic crossing

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  On Sunday, February 9, British Airways flight 112, a 747-400 (tail number G-CIVP), set a new record for fastest subsonic crossing from JFK in New York to LHR in London. [credit: francescoprocida / Aurich Lawson ]

Here’s a good piece of trivia for you: what’s the fastest commercial airliner in operation? As of Sunday, the answer might be “the Boeing 747″—not bad for an airliner that first entered service 50 years ago. On Saturday evening at 6:47pm ET, British Airways 747-400, tail number G-CIVP, took off from John F Kennedy (JFK) airport in New York. It landed at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) at 4:43am local time—a crossing time of just 4 hours and 56 minutes, and a new record for subsonic aircraft.

Of course, the venerable jumbo had some help. Neither Boeing nor BA have rolled out a surprise engine upgrade, but Storm Ciara—a weather disturbance currently rearranging British landscapes—gave the plane a helping hand with 200mph+ (320km/h+) tailwinds. G-CIVP set a peak ground speed of 825mph (1,327km/h), although its peak airspeed remained subsonic at around Mach 0.85.

Virgin Atlantic actually had two of its planes reach Heathrow in under five hours from JFK on Saturday night, each an Airbus A350-1000. However, these planes achieved flight times of 4 hours and 57 minutes and 4 hours and 59 minutes, which at least allowed Virgin Atlantic to tease on Twitter that it accomplished the feat on much less fuel. Both times are still significantly faster than the previous best subsonic Atlantic crossing, set by a Norwegian airliner that took 5 hours and 13 minutes.