History was made at Toronto Pearson yesterday when the largest passenger aircraft ever built -- a double-decker Airbus A380, capable of carrying 486 passengers -- arrived on its first flight to Canada from Dubai. And the pilot who landed the Emirates Airline monster just before 4 o'clock is from Burlington.

Traffic along the 401 westbound slowed to a crawl approaching Dixie Road as the huge jet lumbered down from the western skies.

On a recent trans-Atlantic flight, Capt. David Heino, of Burlington, was high above the inky-blue ocean when he realized just how fortunate he was to be flying the world's biggest commercial airliner.

En route from Dubai to New York, he approached the entry point of the transoceanic track over the western coast of Ireland at the same time as three other commercial jetliners, each flying at different flight levels.

Because of the A380's size, airspeed and tendency to create significant wake turbulence, Heino manoeuvred out of the way and in so doing gave the other pilots a rare in-flight glimpse of the plane nicknamed "superjumbo," which is one of only 14 in the world.

The air-to-air radio immediately began to crackle inside the A380's cavernous cockpit.