Rainbow over Tenerife

When people ask me, what flight has been the most memorable or beautiful, I always struggle to answer immediately. I honestly have to say, that so far each and every flight that I’ve operated, has had its own amazing moments. Be it the most stunning summer sunrises or sunsets, thunderstorms from afar, amazing landscapes or simply fantastic colleagues and their stories and our conversations about life.

Altought it is difficult for me to name a single unique event, I will tell you about this one flight, that still is one of my favourite memories. During the first two months of my line training on the Boeing 737, I was operating out of Barcelona. An amazing base with brilliant colleagues and great flights. One of these line training flights then took me to Tenerife North, a challenging and great airport. As it was my first time flying there, the Captain was the pilot flying on the way out, while I would be flying us back to Barcelona. Luckily for me, working as pilot monitoring always allows you to look out a bit more and I got to enjoy some of the gorgeous views that day. The flight took place some time in December, so the weather was not the best and recent showers had just passed over the island, when we were on final approach for runway 30. There still were low clouds drifting all across the island, touching around the stunning island volcano ‘Teide’, when suddenly the sun starting breaking through the weather again. And that was the moment I started to see a huge rainbow stretching directly from left to right over the runway. It was incredible to be soaring through the clouds, directly approaching that rainbow and a sight I won’t ever forget. But before I even had the time to take a picture, I had to focus on landing the plane with my captain again. Looking back now, I think it was supposed to be something I don’t have a picture of, but the memory of it remains and I still feel so grateful to get to experience so many beautiful moments like this.