KQ pilot Captain Ruth Karauri has been praised after she successfully landed a plane at Heathrow Airport, London, on Friday during a storm.
Britain’s weather service had warned that Storm Eunice was likely to cause disruption and challenging landing conditions.
UK residents were urged to cancel travel plans and stay indoors amid fears of high winds and flying debris across Northern Europe.
A video of a KQ 100 flight steered by Ruth Karauri navigating through the storm has been making rounds on social media, drawing praise and excitement.
Speaking after the landing, Ruth narrated about the extreme weather conditions she encountered and how she was able to manoeuvre with first officer Ayoob Harunany.
“We encountered Storm Eunice in London on Friday. We were landing on the west. There were strong gusting winds and it was quite a bumpy ride.
However, the training we had at Kenya Airways, particularly on the simulator prepared us for such a scenario. We used all our training expertise, previous skills and we handled the landing expertly,” Ruth said.
Storm Eunice caused mayhem with travel in Britain. The aircraft were seen battling strong gusts as they came into land at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Some aeroplanes were wobbling mid-air, others skidding from side to side once they hit the runway.
Storm Eunice is responsible for cutting off power to over 140,000 homes and uprooting trees in Britain.
Storm Eunice is an intense extratropical cyclone that is part of the 2021–2022 European windstorm season. Storm Eunice was named by the UK Met Office on 14 February 2022. On 16 February, an amber weather warning was issued for the whole of Southern England, Wales and the Midlands.
The naming of the storm is done by the UK Met Office, which started the system in 2015. … The storms are named to make people aware of the potential impacts of severe weather. Eunice is the fifth named storm of the season, which began with Arwen in November last year.
When a storm arrives, forecasters will pick the next name from the list, alphabetically. Up next after Eunice is Storm Franklin.
