Headline staff
Another breathtaking moment has been added to the list of feats achieved at Burj Al Arab in Dubai when a pilot achieved a perfect drop landing on the iconic hotel’s famous helipad.
Polish pilot Luke Czepiela, who has also done many difficult types of flying feats, termed it a “bulls-eye landing” in the prevailing weather conditions and the given challenges.
At 6.58am on March 14, the pilot became “the first person in history to land a plane on the helipad” at 212 metres of height.
Ranking his other achievements in detail, Czepiela went on to rate his latest feat on a stellar resume as “11 out of 10”. A former Red Bull Air Race Challenger Class World Champion, he had just 27 metres of round space to bring his Cub Crafters STOL (short take-off and landing) plane to a stop from a landing speed of 43km/h. He brought it to a halt in just 20.76 metres from touchdown on his third attempt.
Although the aircraft is designed for abrupt landings in typical conditions, landing a plane on a platform raised 212 metres in the air, next to a 56-storey building, and with no visual cues to guide him made Czepiela’s historic landing an extraordinary feat.
Czepiela had been preparing for this historic moment since 2021, having completed 650 test landings at ground level in Poland, the US, and Dubai to build his confidence in landing on the helipad without any visual references.
“Normally, when approaching a runway, I can easily see how high above it I am and control the approach path. But today, the ground was 212 metres below, and the helipad disappeared over the nose of the plane, reducing my periphery. As my last few references disappeared, I had to rely on my practice and instincts to bring the plane to a stop before running out of space,” he said.
The world’s only seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel has a history of staging events, mostly around sports, to raise the adrenaline levels of viewers and visitors ever since Tiger Woods hit a routine tee shot from the green pad in 2004.
In 2005, two of tennis’ biggest legends, Roger Federer and Andre Agassi, played a match on a makeshift court on the landing area.
In 2013, former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard performed doughnuts to celebrate Red Bull Racing winning the Formula One Drivers’ and Constructors’ championships that season.
In 2019, professional BMX rider Kriss Kyle rode his bike off the edge of a helicopter and landed on the helipad in a few breathtaking moments.
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