Concorde G-BOAG final landing

It's a beautiful day in the Puget Sound: no clouds and 50 miles visibility.

My wife and I were on the apron at Wings Aloft by 2:10, having left work in
plenty of time for the scheduled 2:50 arrival. I was idly monitoring the
tower frequency when I realized someone was saying "Speedbird" and G-BOAG
was 25 minutes early. At that moment my wife spotted the familiar shape over
the city. The news helicopters had only just lifted off, and the tower was
scrambling to get the field closed.

Tower and the crew negotiated briefly and she did an overhead pass
southwards at 2000ft, went on for a graceful procedure turn over Seatac, and
came on final with a shadowy Mount Rainier as a backdrop, to her last
touchdown on 31L. Wheel contact was abeam where we were standing, and I
heard that deep roar for the last time. And, ah, those familiar British
Airways pilot accents.

She stopped to hang the flags out, and taxied slowly down Bravo taxiway. He
may not have realized it, but the captain was waving the British flag upside
down (a sign of distress at sea). She stopped abeam the Museum Of Flight, a
little perplexed because nobody seemed to know what to do next. Ground even
asked a police car if they could find a follow-me truck. Eventually she
taxied back on the runway a couple of intersections and turned off to get
positioned at the right spot. After another long gaze, we left.

Ground Control was operating even more on the edge of his temper than
usual - there were lots of transients all stepping on each other, and at one
point he even snapped at the Concorde crew for not replying when he called
her C-BOAG.

-- David Brooks