Atlantis Space Shuttle Launch Seen From Airplane Window (PHOTOS)

The most memorable part of Ryan Graff's high school graduation trip to Miami might be the flight to Fort Lauderdale.

As he and his mom were flying a Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore on Friday, he was fortunate enough to catch a rare sight: the space shuttle Atlantis, just minutes after taking off for its final flight.

"It was pretty cool," Graff told The Huffington Post from the pool of his Miami hotel. "You could see a long trail of flames, a trail of smoke and a little opening in the clouds where the shuttle flew out from."

Graff grabbed his iPhone 4 and snapped some incredible pictures of the shuttle. When he landed, he sent them to his brother, Chad, who uploaded them to his Twitpic account. The photos have since gone viral, with one racking up over 26,000 views.

Graff said that once the shuttle disappeared in the distance, the passengers on the flight erupted in applause.

"It was just a really exciting experience," said Graff. "It was the chance of a lifetime."

LOOK:

Images via Twitpic.

Comments

[Mike Dennison]

02:12 PM on 07/11/2011

That first picture is just a very tall thunderstorm cloud.

[daBinsi]

10:10 PM on 07/10/2011

beautiful!!!

[signgrrl]

08:27 PM on 07/10/2011

a nighttime launch would have been awesome . . . .

[JPWEagleEye]

04:18 PM on 07/10/2011

Is it just me or does this plane seem to be flying MUCH higher than every other commercial flight. I mean, you can practically see the curvature of the Earth from this plane.

[Joe Moore]

10:51 PM on 07/12/2011

It's just you.

[European1919]

02:28 PM on 07/10/2011

Kewl pix.

[TomasJefferson]

08:16 AM on 07/10/2011

What would the world have without America?

[HateToImpose]

01:28 PM on 07/10/2011

More Native Americans.

[jonny8440]

07:25 PM on 07/11/2011

HA!

[americaisracist]

05:51 PM on 07/10/2011

peace

[zeroagenow]

11:35 PM on 07/09/2011

dont think our military has to rely on russia for any of its space missions,we will be just fine, nasa is to blame for nasas problems NOT Obama or Bush

[Morpheus Kicks]

07:52 PM on 07/09/2011

Awesome photos. NASA and its contractors have developed so many technologies for everyday use that I would bet no other agency has contributed even a fraction of its technologies for man kind. As a person living in a city that is closely linked and dependent on NASA and the space industry I also find it a shame that the government has no replacement in site for the shuttle. So many skilled workers and engineers have been laid off because of this and it is a shame to think not just 2-4 years ago tens of thousands were recruited, hired and moved into the area for the new constellation program only to get laid off with no future in site. Shame on both administrations, NASA and most of the american people for not giving science its rightful place. And we wonder why we keep falling lower and lower in math and science scores internationally.

[ChrisFL]

11:45 AM on 07/09/2011

Should have sold the second one to Southwest, The guy who decided to put their web address on the winglet should get a bonus! I can hear the discussion in the conference room when they approved the design "how much does it cost to add that paint?" "the only people who will see it are already are customers so is it worth the extra money and weight of the paint"

Saw the same thing many years ago from the cockpit but that was before digital cameras and of course camera phones. So just memories of that one.

[signgrrl]

08:21 PM on 07/10/2011

it's probably vinyl now, not paint, if that's any consolation.

[jwatso7]

11:15 AM on 07/09/2011

Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo came at a time when Americans were optimistic, and worked together. As this post shows, we're now a cynical bunch of pessimists who take the opportunity to post on a story about pictures from a plane how awful the president is. We can't stand each other, we tear each other apart at every turn, and we can't agree on anything. So the fact there's no replacement for the shuttle is not the real problem here. It's indiciative of a much greater problem.

[Poster9999]

11:48 AM on 07/09/2011

During those times you had high racial tensions. MLK was assassinated in '68. Kennedy in '63. Vietnam was escalating as was the counter culture it created. The cold war was heating up. One year after we landed on the moon you'd have 4 dead in Ohio. Watergate was just getting started. These were not peaceful times of everyone getting alone. Quite the opposite. In fact much criticism was made by many at the time about how we were celebrating our moon landing while so much was going wrong here on the earth.

I agree we live in polarized times, but l think you are seeing the past with rose colored glasses.

[atheis4]

02:15 PM on 07/09/2011

Maybe NASA served as the one thing all Americans could rally behind. We've gotten to the point where the other side doesn't disagree with you on principle, but disagrees simply because its the other side.

We need big national programs that can build up all Americans, not just the super wealthy... Looking at you congress.

[efreilly]

11:07 AM on 07/09/2011

pretty awesome pics. hope we'll be able to see some similar in my lifetime. BTW: Youtube and other such sites have pretty cool videos of similar experiences, some even in HD.

Most excellent!

[DocZack]

09:47 AM on 07/09/2011

Why didn't this guy offer better leadership for the space program?

[BVictor1]

09:32 AM on 07/09/2011

Southwest couldn't have gotten any better advertisin­g than that.

[efreilly]

11:06 AM on 07/09/2011

was thinking the same thing.

[tonymoco]

02:00 PM on 07/10/2011

The person who insisted on putting "Southwest.com" on the winglet for just this reason can die now.

And the photo will become Exhibit A for plastering "Ourwebsite.com" everywhere because "remember that Southwest shuttle pic that went viral? You can't buy that kind of publicity BLAH BLAH BLAH..."

[catlover68]

09:14 AM on 07/09/2011

Awesome!

[duckpuddle]

08:24 AM on 07/09/2011

Nice images. The first is a perspective I've never seen.