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Home / Travel

Passengers watch SpaceX rocket launch from plane window at Cape Canaveral

By Chantelle Francis
news.com.au·
15 Feb, 2023 06:47 PM2 mins to read

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Passengers on a flight over Cape Canaveral were lucky to witness a rocket launch. Video / @chefpinkpr

What is the coolest thing you have seen out your plane window?

For passengers on-board a United Airlines flight, it was seeing the launch of a rocket.

An American photojournalist who was a passenger on the plane that had a great view of SpaceX Falcon 9 launching late last year said on Twitter it was “one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen”.

He was flying over Cape Canaveral, Florida at the time, where NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is located.

Falcon 9 was manufactured by Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX to transport people and cargo into Earth’s orbit.

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Travellers on the United Airlines plane had watched on as SpaceX’s newest Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft, the Dragon C211, launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday, November 26.

The timing is even more impressive when you know an initial launch attempt earlier in the week was scrubbed due to weather.

The spacecraft was sent to resupply the Expedition 68 crew aboard the International Space Station.

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It was also carrying a pair of Roll Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs) to be installed on the exterior of the International Space Station during spacewalks.

Another man who is believed to have witnessed the same rocket launch while flying posted the video to TikTok, which has now been viewed almost 40 million times.

“While working my flight we witnessed this once in a lifetime phenomenon!!” he captioned the video.

Someone in shock behind the camera could be heard saying, “this is unbelievable”.

“What are the chances of this?” they asked in disbelief.

“This is AWESOME!”

Thousands of people have commented on the video to also share their amazement.

“Talk about being at the right place at the right time,” one person wrote, attracting more than 30,000 likes.

“I hope you played lottery because you are the luckiest people in the world,” another wrote.

A third said: “Hopefully the plane didn’t tip sideways with everyone running over to the other windows to look.”

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