Airbus Beluga: Unusual whale-looking plane lands at Heathrow Airport in rare sighting - how many Airbus Belugas are there?

The Airbus BelugaXL touched down at Heathrow Airport on Monday (9 September) giving London plane-spotters the rare chance to see the whale-like aircraft. The unusually shaped carrier resembles a beluga whale and delivers spare parts to fix Airbus carriers.

It touched down at 11am after flying from Toulouse in France. The plane touched down to deliver parts to a British Airways plane that had been grounded since April due to a collision. The Virgin Boeing 787-9 plane had completed a flight and had no passengers on board while it was being towed to a different part of the airfield when it collided with the stationary British Airways plane. 

While the Virgin Atlantic plane returned to service the British Airways aircraft was grounded due to serious damage. No passengers were injured.

Users on X, formerly Twitter, said the Airbus Beluga plane looked like a whale and others also thought it paid a close resemblance to an ex-footballer. One user wrote: “For a second I thought it was Vincent Kompany”. While another said: “Is that the former Burnley manager?”.

The Airbus Beluga was due to leave Heathrow at 17:40 on Monday to return to Toulouse according to Flightradar24. The Beluga is a massive cargo aircraft designed to carry aircraft parts or large cargo. Airbus currently operates a fleet of six Beluga planes.