Pilots navigate ferocious winds in UK

As Storm Eunice pounded the United Kingdom on Friday, hundreds of thousands of people were entranced by a livestream of planes landing at London Heathrow Airport.

At times, more than 200,000 people (and some cats) were tuned in to a YouTube livestream run by plane spotting channel Big Jet TV. The livestream, manned by Big Jet TV founder and longtime aviation enthusiast Jerry Dyer, featured Dyer's enthusiastic commentary as dozens of planes successfully landed at Heathrow International Airport through Storm Eunice's punishing winds.

The winds can be heard over Dyer's commentary as he encourages the pilots to make safe landings. "This is insanity, man," Dyer said as the winds kicked up while an Air Portugal plane came into the airport around 11:05 GMT.

"Come on, man, you can do it, get the plane on the ground," he added right before the plane decided to abort the landing.

His palpable enthusiasm helped the livestream go viral on Twitter, with one user joking that the stream’s newfound popularity might lead The New York Times to buy the stream, as it did for popular word-puzzle game Wordle. One company, Yorkshire Tea, remarked that some of their employees had sat down to watch the stream for just a minute but that they ended up watching for hours and canceling their meetings.

Many social media users compared the livestream to the Winter Olympics, with one saying: "Big Jet TV currently more gripping than the Winter Olympics. A brand new spectator sport is born!"

Others were amused by the horses that made occasional appearances on the stream. "Came for the planes, stayed for the horses," one user tweeted.

Shaky plane landings are not all that uncommon in the United Kingdom, with windstorms often impacting Northern Europe during the winter months. Still, the threat posed by Storm Eunice is unique.

As Storm Eunice drew near, an extremely rare red weather warning had been issued for the southwest of England. The warning specified that wind gusts in the most exposed coastal areas could reach in excess of 90 mph. For the first time, the warning, which means there “is a danger to life,” including the city of London, ITV reported.

The winds that Eunice packed were no joke, with reports of wind gusts up to 122 miles per hour, the fastest ever recorded in England, according to the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office.

The extraordinarily high winds caused British Airways to cancel at least 80 flights arriving and departing from London-area airports, including 44 at Heathrow Airport due to Storm Eunice, according to reporting from The Independent. There have been no reports of damage to any planes that have landed at Heathrow through the winds.

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