Frame by frame · what the window was seeing
01Depart
Mumbai — the apron
at the gate·296° WNW
A Kuwait Airways A330 taxiing past the terminal at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The start line.
02Cruise
The circles of Arabia
+2h 39m·326° NW
Center-pivot irrigation discs scratched into the desert — crops drawn from deep fossil water, unmistakable from altitude.
03Coast
The Red Sea
+4h 26m·022° NNE
Turquoise reef and sandbar against a bare desert coast, as the track crossed toward Egypt.
04Coast
The Egyptian coast
+5h 06m·050° NE
A great port on a long curving shore — the Mediterranean edge of the Nile delta, most likely the approaches to Alexandria.
05Overfly
Athens & the Saronic Gulf
+6h 08m·062° ENE
The swarm of anchored ships gives it away: Piraeus, with Athens climbing the mountains behind.
06Cross
The Aegean
+6h 15m·046° NE
Wing over the Greek coast and islands — deep blue water and dry headlands, the classic Aegean.
07Coast
The Dalmatian coast
+7h 25m·036° NE
Long, thin, parallel limestone islands — the Kornati archipelago. No coastline pleats like it.
08Overfly
The Alps
+7h 49m·322° NW
Snow on the high ridges as the camera swung northwest — the track bending its last arc toward London.
09Descend
Northern Europe
+8h 20m·029° NNE
Flat farmland and bright mineral ponds through the haze — the near-Continent, letting down.
10Arrive
London
+9h 17m·final
The Thames coiling round the Isle of Dogs, Canary Wharf, the O2 — home, nine and a quarter hours after Mumbai.