Three most dramatic flight landings made by pilots

Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, January 15, 2009.

Two Air India pilots have earned wide praise on social media for deftly landing at London’s Heathrow Airport in the middle of high-speed winds amid Storm Eunice.

Captain Anchit Bhardwaj and Captain Aditya Rao landed safely in London while when many other airlines could not, an Air India official told The Times of India.

Big Jet TV, a YouTube channel that streams take-offs and landings at the Heathrow Airport,  captured the landing of one of the planes.

Air India Flight lands safely in London in the middle of ongoing Storm Eunice . High praise for the skilled AI pilot. @airindiainpic.twitter.com/yyBgvky1Y6

— Kiran Bedi (@thekiranbedi) February 19, 2022

"Looks like he has got it,” the commentator for the video said. “Winds are gusting. Yeah, very skilled Indian pilot there.”

There have been occasions where pilots have had to land in even more challenging situations because of system failures. Here is a look at those spectacular moments in aviation:

American pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger faced a tough choice when minutes after take-off from New York's LaGuardia Airport, the engines of his plane were damaged by a flock of birds. He realised that he would not make it to nearby airports and chose to crash land into the Hudson River. The plane’s whole crew and 155 passengers survived. Sullenberger’s life inspired the 2016 movie Sully, starring Tom Hanks

The pilots of an Air India flight from Delhi to New York faced multiple system failures. They found that none of the systems that were supposed to help them land were working, NDTV reported. Since they were unable to land in New York, the pilots had to think of an alternative airport.

Captain Rustom Pallia, who was controlling the aircraft, decided to land in Newark in New Jersey.  But low-hanging clouds obscured the runway.

"I finally spotted the runway approach lights at an altitude of just about 400 feet just 1.5 miles away, a distance we would cover in seconds given the speed that we were flying at," Pallia told NDTV. “I had to snap correct and descend the 777 without the help of any automated altitude read out" and with no means of knowing my precise altitude.”

The plane eventually managed to land safely at Newark.

At a height of 41,000 feet, this Air Canada flight from Montreal to Edmonton ran out of fuel mid-way. The pilots decided to divert to Winnipeg.

Captain Robert Pear­son put the plane into optimal glide mode to “maximize flight distance to glide the aircraft to Winnipeg within range”, Forbes reported.

Meanwhile, First Officer Maurice Quintal flagged that that Gimli Air Force base was even closer for landing.

The deft handling of the situation by the pilots ensured that the plane landed at the base safely and there were no casualties.