These Bumpy Aircraft Landings Are Every Passengers' Nightmare

Kathleen Villaluz

It seems like a Hollywood production, but these landings, filmed from Runway 23 of Madeira Airport in Portugal, are non-fictional and have endured gust of winds at around 45 knots or 83 km/h during their touchdown attempts. One of the worst nightmares that can come true is when you're onboard an aircraft attempting to land with the elements of nature fighting hard against it. It's a make or break scenario and what is at stake are the lives of people who have entrusted their safety in the hands of a helpless pilot.

A compilation of aircraft landings was recorded on a gusty afternoon, a day after Christmas back in 2015, in Madeira Airport in Portugal. Some of the aircraft battled hard to make their safe, but nauseatingly bumpy, landing and some couldn't even approach their initial touchdown and had to pull back up to go around to attempt landing one more time. As you watch each aircraft trying to land, you can see how their wings flap like they're made out of paper. The ground level gust of wind acts like a layer cushion a few meters between the landing strip and the aircraft, which causes the airplanes to bounce and lose their orientation. One particular terrifying landing was that of the British Airways aircraft at 5:25 minutes where it looked as if it was about to touchdown but immediately took off again. The very first landing in the compilation, the AirBerlin aircraft at 1:21 minutes, had the most off-course landing as the gusty wind threw it off its path.