The touchdown looked normal. Then the nose swung left, and a Jet2 Boeing 737-800 rolled off the edge of the runway and onto the grass at Birmingham Airport, while people filming the landing could be heard reacting in disbelief.

It happened on Sunday afternoon, 25 October 2026, as Storm Boelo pushed strong westerly winds across the UK. The aircraft was operating Jet2 flight LS1310 from Venice. The airline says the jet returned to the runway straight away, taxied to its stand, and everyone on board got off as normal. No injuries have been reported.

Off the paved surface, then back on

Flight-tracking data cited by Simple Flying and AeroXplorer put the landing on runway 33 at about 14:19 local time. UK clocks had gone back to GMT early that morning, so local time and UTC were the same. AirLive and the aviation account Turbine Traveller identified the aircraft as G-JZHE, one of the Jet2 737-800 fleet.

Footage shows the jet touching down and then drifting sharply towards the left edge of the runway before running onto the grass. According to Aviation News, the left main landing gear left the paved surface before the pilots steered the aircraft back onto the runway and turned off onto a taxiway.

Jet2 confirmed the runway excursion in a statement to the BBC and put it down to the weather.

The wind at 14:20

Birmingham has a single runway, 15/33, which runs northwest to southeast. Landing on runway 33 means flying towards the northwest. Birmingham’s routine weather report for 14:20 UTC, a minute after the reported landing time, logged wind from 280 degrees at 19 knots, gusting to 32 knots.

That wind was blowing roughly 50 degrees off the runway heading, from the left of an aircraft landing on runway 33. By Afterburner’s own calculation, that gives a crosswind component of about 15 knots in the steady wind and close to 25 knots in the gusts. The 12:50 report had been rougher still, with gusts to 34 knots.

Gusty crosswinds are exactly the conditions in which pilots work hardest to keep an airliner straight during the moment it transitions from flying to rolling. Still, the wind is context, not a verdict. No investigation findings have been published, and the precise cause of the excursion has not been established.

Storm Boelo

Storm Boelo was named on 22 October 2026, according to the Met Office. It is the second name on the 2026-27 list that the Met Office draws up with Ireland’s Met Éireann and the Dutch weather service KNMI. The UK names a storm when it could cause disruption or damage serious enough for an amber or red warning.

The Aviation Hub, citing the Met Office, reported gusts of 60 to 70 mph in many areas on Sunday and a peak of 82 mph on Tiree in the Inner Hebrides. Birmingham sat well south of the worst of it, but Birmingham Mail reported that every departure on the airport’s board at one point on Sunday afternoon had been delayed.

Airport Action’s live stream from Birmingham Airport during Storm Boelo on 25 October 2026; Turbine Traveller credited this stream for its footage of the Jet2 excursion.

Some social media users said the runway was briefly closed after the excursion and posted images of aircraft queuing on the ground. Birmingham Airport has not confirmed a closure or said how long any suspension lasted.

A busy Jet2 base

Birmingham is home to one of Jet2’s UK bases, which the leisure airline opened in March 2017. Jet2 began flying second-hand 737-800s in 2011 and today runs a substantial 737 fleet on its leisure network.

On Sunday, one of those routine arrivals from the Mediterranean ended with wheels on the grass, a quick recovery and a cabin full of passengers walking off as normal. The video will be replayed for days. The question of exactly why the jet drifted left is still open.

Sources: BBC News, Birmingham Mail, Simple Flying, AeroXplorer, AirLive, Aviation News, The Aviation Hub, Met Office (UK Storm Centre), aviationweather.gov (EGBB METAR), Wikipedia (Birmingham Airport; Jet2.com)