WASHINGTON — A red-eye flight from Dulles to London over the weekend topped 800 miles per hour.
The Virgin Atlantic flight usually takes about seven and a half hours but with near-record winds over the mid-Atlantic, the flight time was cut down to six hours and 40 minutes.
According to FlightAware, the Boeing 787 hit 800 miles per hour, a speed practically unheard of for commercial airliners, roughly 23 minutes into the flight. Usually, commercial planes like the Boeing 787, hit cruising speeds at around 550 miles per hour.
So, where did the turbo boost come from?
The National Weather Service posted on social media Saturday night mentioning wind speeds hitting 265 miles per hour up around 34,000 feet.
According to WUSA Chief Meteorologist Topper Shutt, the near-record wind speeds propelled the plane to go faster than the speed of sound, which, according to NASA, is 761 mph.
While this sounds great, a plane going in the opposite direction, fighting against the winds, took an extra 90 minutes to land at its destination.
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