A British Airways flight is thought to have broken the fastest-ever subsonic New York to London crossing time after reaching speeds of more than 800mph.
It came as Storm Ciara hurtled towards the UK and Ireland on the back of a 200mph jet stream.
The front, which has been described as "the worst storm in seven years" to hit Britain, is battering the country with hurricane-force winds and torrential rain.
According to Flightradar24, an online flight tracking service, a British Airways Boeing 747 departing JFK airport on Saturday reached Heathrow in 4 hours 56 minutes shortly after 11.20pm.
It reached its fastest ground speed of 825mph by Newfoundland at about 35,000ft, according to Flightradar24's tracking tool.
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 flight which landed at Heathrow moments later, and three minutes quicker than another Virgin plane which arrived at 5.12am this morning.
Meanwhile flights travelling in the other direction were taking two and a half hours longer.
The flights broke the previous record held by Norwegian, which reached London Gatwick from JFK in 5 hours and 13 minutes in 2018.
In a statement about the record, British Airways said: "We always prioritise safety over speed records, but our highly trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time."
