Photo by Rob Wessman
Daily Mail: Pilots of a Delta Airlines flight 1889 had to make an emergency landing – without being able to see out of the windshield – after baseball-sized hailstones wrecked the front of the plane. The hail also destroyed the GPS navigation system at the front of the aircraft, which was flying from Boston to Salt Lake City on Friday night. The pilots managed to land in Denver – where the passengers could see the extent of the damage to the Airbus 320’s cone.
Many said they were lucky to be alive after relatively normal turbulence became a roller coaster up in the air. ‘So that is my airplane. Glad to be alive,’ Instagram user Beau Sorenson said, posting a picture of the plane.
The flight had been delayed in Boston ‘and the pilot warned us of a little chop as he was routed between 2 storms. The next thing we know, we are bouncing around in some very big turbulence,’ he told The Weather Channel.
‘We heard loud banging sounds and saw lightning arcing on the right wing. We banked abruptly and descended sharply, by then kids were crying and people were upset.’ Passenger Rob Wessman told ABC that ‘people were kind of holding hands and others were crying’.
It is not known how many people were on the plane, but Airbus 320s can hold up to 180.
Hail was reportedly entering the plane’s engines and exiting out the other side like a snow-cone machine.
Passenger Robin Jones told Fox 13 she was thinking: ‘Have I told everybody that I love that I love them?’
The pilots decided to make the emergency landing when the windshield cracked. They had to use the plane’s automatic guiding system because they had limited visibility. But they were able to successfully land the plane at 8.40pm with help from the control tower.
Passengers said they did not realize how bad the situation was until they landed and saw the emergency vehicles at Denver International Airport. When they disembarked, they saw the horrifying condition of the plane’s front.
One passenger was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. The remainder were flown to Salt Lake City on a replacement plane, and landed at 1.43am – five hours after the originally scheduled arrival.
One passenger, Jack Thompson, later posted a photo of the plane mid-air and tweeted: ‘I really want to see how the turbines held up. Scrap it all 4 parts.’
Delta has yet to comment about the flight. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.
From Fox13:
“We went around the corner from the window, we could see the shattered windshield,” said passenger Rob Wessman. “We could see kind of a hole over the engine where lightning had struck. We could see the nose of the plane was missing. It was really intense.”
DCG