Flight Captain Brenda Riepsaame Wassink faced challenging conditions when she brought her Boeing 757-200 aircraft in to land at Britain’s Bristol Airport in galeforce winds gusting at up to 75 km/h.
Winds blasting directly across the runway during Storm Callum in October 2018 caused the TUI Airways plane to come in nearly sideways.
Video footage is dramatic. When pilots face a crosswind landing they point the aircraft in the direction of the wind while maintaining a straight course towards the runway.
It is called crabbing or yawing and it resembles coming in sideways.
TUI Airways afterwards expressed its pride in the pilot and the landing in adverse weather conditions. It showed “how highly skilled and well trained our TUI Airways pilots are”, the carrier said.
Wassink, 35, joined TUI in 2005, becoming a captain in 2017. She was piloting flight TOM6561 from Menorca, Spain, to Bristol when she completed her landing.
UK-based YouTuber MrAviationGuy, famed for his plane-spotting videos, captured the footage. He also recorded other planes trying to land during the same storm, failing to do so and having to divert.
Written by Peter Needham
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