The first non-stop scheduled flight from Australia to the UK has landed in London — early — after a 17 hour, five minute journey across 14,875km from Perth.
Qantas flight QF9, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with more than 230 passengers and crew on board, touched down at 5:03am at Heathrow on a chilly morning yesterday to a welcome from ground staff.
The landing marked the first direct commercial passenger jet journey between Australia and Europe and has been described as a “game-changer” by some in the aviation industry.
The Dreamliner, which Qantas says has 20 percent better fuel efficiency than similar-sized aircraft, covered the distance with no major dramas.
Passengers did have to endure a period of some turbulence as the plane skirted Cyclone Marcus, a storm off the west coast of Australia, shortly after takeoff.
QF9 departed Perth at about 6:57pm with Quantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce, the Australian trade and tourism minister Steve Ciobo and a group of journalists on board. On arrival at Heathrow, the plane was greeted by parade of vehicles with lights flashing on the tarmac.
“I would like to welcome you to the history book of aviation. The world has been watching us today. Thank you for being part of something so magical and so special,” Captain Lisa Norman, who was one of four working pilots on board, said after touchdown.
Joyce gave a short speech over the plane’s intercom shortly before landing.
“Today we are on this amazing historic flight, which is the fastest flight between Australia and the UK that has ever occurred. So congratulations on this amazing occasion,” he said.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
RSS