A phenomenal mid October day featuring a beautiful sky overlooking the Alboran Sea. This Friday morning featured three flights landing and departing at Gibraltar International Airport, often considered one of the Top Ten Most Dangerous Airports in the World.
The first flight, was from Manchester flown by easyJet. Landing at runway 9 at 10:30am. At first I headed over to the other end of the Runway, because the wind was coming from the South, and this is an East/West runway. As I looked over the sea to the South I saw EZY1963 heading around The Rock of Gibraltar. I quickly biked over to the other end, just barely getting the chance to see that plane landing.
I then headed back over to Playa Levante, the beach on the eastern end of La Linea. I was taking my chances to see if the next two flights would come in for landing at this end. The wind was barely shifting but still coming very lightly from the south.
I got super lucky as I noticed easyJet's London Gatwick flight on Flightradar24 coming in from the east to land at this end of the airport. Just four minutes later in came British Airways flight BA492 from London Heathrow.
The wind direction plays such a big role in any airplanes take off direction, however, at Gibraltar it's a really big deal especially since the winds change so frequently in The Strait of Gibraltar. Sometimes wind gusts can sweep suddenly around The Rock, and cause substantial turbulence for these planes, making it impossible to land and having to divert to Malaga.
Within 20 minutes of the latter flights arrival, easyJet's Manchester flight was ready for departure. I wasn't sure which direction this plane would depart, but I stayed at the beach to take my chances to get a cool sight! It happened to depart heading west, the opposite direction of me. I did manage to capture the plane circling around The Rock of Gibraltar which in and of itself is a beautiful sight!
With luck on my side, I stayed at Playa Levante only for the wind so slightly shift directions and have both EZY8902 and BA493 depart from the same end they landed. That is not a very frequent occurrence, so it was awesome! And I was able to get some amazing shots of the planes departing with The Rock of Gibraltar as the back drop!
Be sure to check out Ministry of Flight on YouTube to see full 4K videos of these planes landing at departing at Gibraltar Airport.
Flight Data Information:
easyJet
MAN-GIB
Flight U21963
Call Sign: EZY91KE
Equipment: A320 (G-EZOM)
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Landing Time: 10:30 AM 21 Oct 2022
LGW-GIB Flight U28901 Call Sign: EZY71WH Equipment: A320 (G-EZWP) Aircraft: A320-214 Landing time: 10:57 AM 21 Oct 2022
LHR-GIB Flight BA492 Call Sign: BAW492U Equipment: A320 (G-EUUB) Aircraft: Airbus A320-232 Landing Time: 11:01 AM 21 OCT 2022
Departure: easyJet GIB-MAN Flight U21964 Call Sign: EZY76HC Equipment: A320 (G-EZOM) Aircraft: Airbus A320-214 Departure Time: 11:20 AM
GIB-LGW Flight U28902 Call Sign: EZY89WP Equipment: A320 (G-EZWP) Aircraft: A320-214 Departure time: 11:48 AM 21 Oct 2022
GIB-LHR Flight BA493 Call Sign: BAW493U Equipment: A320 (G-EUUB) Aircraft: Airbus A320-232 Departure Time: 12:06 PM 21 Oct 2022
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