Twin brothers, who arrived in the world 30 minutes apart, have both retired as airline pilots by landing their final flights just 30 seconds apart. Captains Jeremy and Nick Hart celebrated their 60th birthday by touching down for the last time at Heathrow Airport.
Despite both working for British Airways for the past five years, the brothers have not flown together due to their senior rank.
Jeremy, from Flitton in England, described landing alongside his brother as "a good way to finish. I've spent more than two-and-a-half years in the air," he said. "A lot of it in the holding pattern over Heathrow."
He said they "never had a rivalry" over their flying careers and were "always supportive" of each other.
For their final flights Nick flew in from Gothenburg, Sweden, at 12.34pm on Thursday, while Jeremy landed after flying from Geneva, Switzerland, at 12.35pm.
Between them the brothers have clocked up almost 45,000 flying hours and flown more than 2 million passengers. Jeremy signed up to BA in 1987, while Nick joined the company from British Midland in 2012, when it was absorbed by the flag carrier.
Nick said: "I've done 28 years' short-haul flying. That's about 11,000 flights. It's at least 1.2 million passengers. Like every aeroplane has its last landing, so does a pilot."
The pair are not identical, but look and sound so similar that they are often mistaken for each other.
Nick said: "Years ago Jerry never mentioned to his colleagues at British Airways that he had a twin brother who flew for British Midland, and one day a British Airways pilot strode over to me at Heathrow and asked what on earth I thought I was doing dressing up in a British Midland uniform.
"It took a bit of explaining to convince him that I wasn't Jerry."
- The Daily Telegraph
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