Passengers of Alaska Airlines Flight 870 were treated with an astronomical spectacle on Tuesday as they luckily witnessed the only solar eclipse this year straight from their plane windows in a very strategic location.
Alaska Airlines posted a Facebook video of the total solar eclipse as viewed by 163 passengers onboard, which was made possible by the efforts of astronomers and veteran “eclipse chasers.”
The airlines said Joe Rao, an associate astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium, discovered that Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Honolulu “would intersect the path of totality—the darkest shadow of the moon as it passes over the earth.”
The flight’s scheduled departure time, however, would be 25 minutes earlier than the eclipse, which prompted Rao to call the airlines.
Alaska Airlines then decided to move the plane.
“We adjusted #870 from Anchorage to Honolulu just so our passengers could catch the solar eclipse from 35,000 feet,” the airlines said.
As of writing, the Facebook video has garnered more than 394,000 views, 10,153 shares, and 11,000 reactions.