The stunt had been in the planning since 2021
Luke Czepiela, a Polish pilot, achieved a major feat by successfully landing an aeroplane 700 feet above the ground on a tennis court-sized area. The helipad-like landing area was located above the iconic Burj-Al-Arab Jumeirah hotel in Dubai. The pilot pulled off the stunt in ‘world first’ landing on the 27-metre-long space, the shortest runway. The average runway is 8,000 feet, even an aircraft carrier has a landing strip about 10 times bigger than this.
The pilot achieved the unprecedented milestone by landing a specially adapted light aircraft and completing the task in only 21 meters (68 feet) despite having 27 meters to bring his aircraft to a stop, according to a report by CNN.
To land on the helipad, 27m in diameter, he completed over 650 practice landings before the final landing on top of the 56-storey hotel.
The video of the stunt was posted on Red Bull’s official Instagram page. The caption of the post read, “WORLD FIRST ALERT @luke.czepiela lands a plane on the iconic 56-story @Burjalarab.”
Watch the video here:
“The biggest challenge was the lack of any external points of reference, which is usually found at an airport where you have hundreds of meters of the runway,” Mr Czepiela said while speaking about the incredible feat.
The stunt had been in the planning stages since 2021.
According to CNN, Mr Czepiela has impressive flying achievements under his belt, including the 2018 world championship challenger class title in the Red Bull Air Race and landing an aircraft on a wooden pier in Sopot, Poland.
The internet was stunned after watching the heart-stopping stunt. A user commented, “That’s some GTA type of landing.”
Another user wrote, “Bullseye.”
The third user commented, “Nice. Feel like the take-off showed he would have been alright if he went off the edge. Bad ass though.”
