British Airways (BA) has broken the record for the fastest subsonic flight between New York and London, achieving a top speed of over 800 miles per hour.
The BA subsonic flight involved a Boeing 747 aircraft that flew overnight from Saturday to Sunday from New York to London and took only four hours and 56 minutes to reach its destination.
Senior CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said: "The flight was riding a much stronger than usual jet stream, with winds over 200 mph propelling the aircraft."
"The supercharged jet stream is also responsible for powering Storm Ciara, which has brought damaging wind gusts and massive waves to the UK, Ireland and other parts of Northern Europe this weekend," Miller mentioned.
He added: "The jet stream is a fast moving 'river of air' high in the atmosphere, around the height that commercial airliners fly. The jet stream is responsible for carrying weather systems around the planet."
The aircraft landed at Heathrow airport at 4:43 a.m., nearly two hours earlier than scheduled. Online flight-tracking service Flightradar24, the plane had an in-flight top speed of 825 mph.
Flightradar24 also noted that the flight took only four hours and 56 minutes while the average time it takes to fly between London and New York is six hours and 13 minutes. On Twitter, the online flight-tracking service announced the record-breaking flight.
However, the plane would not have gone beyond the sonic barrier if it was not being pushed by the air around it. The 747 aircraft was actually traveling much slower than the speed of sound relative to the air around it but was able to go over 800 mph because of the jet stream.
A spokesperson for BA said: "We always prioritize safety over speed records, but our highly trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time."
