Unbelievable footage shows pilot becoming the first to land an Airbus A340 in Antarctica

A pilot made history a few years ago by becoming the first to ever land an aircraft as majestic as the Airbus A340 on Wolf’s Fang blue ice runway in Antarctica.

Flights visiting the southern continent are wildly different and usually more complex than your everyday flights.

That’s exactly why this flight was one for the history books, and the footage of the landing is nothing short of remarkable.

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Pilot lands first ever Airbus A340 in Antarctica

Charter airline Hi Fly operated the Airbus A340 flight back in 2014, where the plane took a five-hour flight to Antarctica.

One of its crew members also filmed the entire thing, and the footage posted on YouTube showed the cockpit view of the plane’s landing.

Let us tell you, it truly was a sight to behold.

As mesmerizing as the views of endless snow glaciers are, landing an aircraft — that too an A340 — requires extreme skill.

Captain Carlos Mirpuri was the ‘commander’ of this flight, and he was quite satisfied with how things turned out.

“It would be a long day for the crew, but the excitement of participating in such a unique event stood above anything else,” he said.

The Airbus A340 was handpicked for this journey because of how capable the airplane is.

A promising plane to land on blue ice

Although the four-engined aircraft is humongous, the airplane can pull off long-haul flights without breaking a sweat.

“Its four engines redundancy and very long range make it the ideal airplane for this type of mission,” Captain Mirpuri added.

Relatively smaller jets like the Boeing 757 have also had successful landings before.

While the A340 is not the first widebody jet to land on a blue ice runway, the landing was still momentous.

If you’re wondering what makes this flight special, there’s something you need to know about the icy region.

You see, an aircraft visiting Antarctica loses all communications hundreds of miles before entering the area.

The pilots have to fly without any guided assistance and assess everything manually.

This, paired with the harsh climate, certainly makes it challenging for any airplane to visit the southern continent.