Palma.—Hurricane force winds peaking at 140 kilometres per hour caused chaos in the Balearics yesterday and disrupted Spanish Air Force maneuvers.
At 9am, four Spanish F-18s took off from Son San Joan air base to join other aircraft as part of Operation Sirio Tormenta 2014 yesterday morning.
But, when they returned to base two-and-a-half hours later, the cross winds at the air base had picked up and were gusting at 40 knots, just over 74 kilometres per hour, and as one of the F-18 came in to land, it was caught in the cross wind and was blown off the runway causing a major emergency.
Emergency after F-18 is blown off the runway in Palma