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See photos and videos from the BA and Virgin Atlantic dual take-off at Heathrow

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We’ve started to collate photos and video from the big US reopening event.

British Airways shared this video from the Heathrow control tower of the dual take-off of the British Airways and Virgin Atlantic flights to New York this morning. This is to celebrate the reopening of the US to visitors travelling from the UK.

If you look at the Instagram story that Rhys posted earlier, you can see that Heathrow airspace was closed to allow this to happen. The main reason was that a helicopter was flying around the airport to get shots of the take-off which were broadcast live on Sky News.

Here is the control tower video, which is only 38 seconds long. It starts off looking a bit dull but the final shot is very impressive:

Here is a video shot by Rhys showing the take-off.  He is in the Virgin Atlantic aircraft and has a perfect view of the British Airways aircraft alongside him – you can watch online here if it does not show below:

British Airways has only shared one photo so far. The Virgin Atlantic aircraft is the tiny one in the background …

British Airways Virgin Atlantic dual take off

This photo is from James Oates (@speedbiruk on Instagram) and is used with permission:

Rhys also sent this picture:

British Airways Virgin Atlantic joint take off

He’s also been testing out The Loft social area on the Virgin Atlantic A350 for your benefit:

Looks like a good time was had by all …..

Comments (51)

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  • Tony1 says:

    Looks good 🙂

  • ChrisC says:

    As Father Ted might say

    It’s not tiny it’s just far, far away

  • the_real_a says:

    Are they doing a syncro landing in the US?

    • ADS says:

      some comments on Twitter that VS is 30 mins ahead of BA … but just looking at their tracks, they seem close enough to do a synchro landing.

    • Rhys says:

      No, nothing at JFK. Not even a water cannon salute!

    • Ben says:

      No PR to be gained from the US side, they’ve been able to fly over since day one!

  • Simon says:

    There’s a good screengrab from the Big Jet TV YouTube feed circulating on Twitter.

  • Oh! Matron! says:

    You may wish to check out Virgin’s FB page

    Best photo I’ve seen so far….

    • Oh! Matron! says:

      Bad form replying to yourself but it’s even got both the VS and BA tails side by side on the ground 🙂

  • Mrs_Fussy says:

    real feel good moment

  • Bagoly says:

    Which seat is Sean Doyle in ?
    Is First all BA managers?

  • John says:

    VS is estimating to land 8 minutes ahead of BA. Looks like BA is having to head on a different course to the other runway being used for the dual landing. I assume VS will wait until BA catches up and they land simultaneously.

    • Rob says:

      As they use different terminals, there is no pressure for one to land first to ensure that their passengers aren’t stuck at immigration behind 300 people from the other aircraft!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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