That’s quite a wind!

Footage from Alykel airport in Siberia shows a Boeing 737 of Nordstar being spun around by a very strong wind.  It’s caused by the ‘weathervane effect‘, which in this case was enough to overcome the inertia of the aircraft and move it over the ice.

Considering that a fully fueled and loaded Boeing 737 can weigh up to about 90 tons, depending on the model, that must have been a pretty strong wind . . .

Peter

5 comments

  1. I was in a thunderstorm in El Paso once that blew an airplane around like that. It was raining horizontally like a firehouse through the seams in our hangar door. Blew one of our hangar doors in. A B747 was down the ramp, and it did a bit of weather vane-ing, too.

    I was checking out a static C-47 display in Lubbock several years ago. The wind was gusting almost directly at the aircraft. You could see it trying to lift off it's mounts! It was really working at it.

    STxRynn

  2. 90 tons sounds a little bit high for a 737. It was probably at landing weight, ie with just enough fuel in the wings for the 'alternate plus 45 minutes' less than 60 tons. That light and with that big stabilizer 50 feet or more behind the gear on an icy surface the tug crew should not have unhitched it until they had it pointed into the wind.

    Al_in_Ottawa

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