Hailstones damaged the cockpit windshield of an Austrian Airlines Airbus A320 aircraft, but the plane luckily landed safely on Sunday while flying from Mallorca to Vienna.
Passengers didn’t know how bad it was until after the jet landed and the pilot had to land blind.
Aside from some little turbulence, the first part of the trip went off without a hitch. Nevertheless, just thirty minutes before its scheduled landing time, the jet passed through a “thunderstorm cell” while en route to Vienna.
The pilot, who also reported a strong tremor, brought the passengers’ damaged windshield to their attention. The plane nonetheless managed to land in Vienna despite the windshield being broken and the nose nearly entirely gone. The passengers were shocked to learn that the pilot had landed blind, bringing the plane perilously close to an accident.
As the plane was getting close to Vienna, it ran into a “thunderstorm cell,” so the emergency responders had to race to the airport before the plane could land. The pilot successfully brought the plane down despite the damaged windshield, and fortunately, no one on board was hurt.
The news has been filled with reports of near-misses in the air as of late. A Singapore Airlines plane experienced violent turbulence last month, resulting in the death of one man and significant injuries to others. In fewer than five seconds, Flight SQ321 experienced massive changes in gravitational pull, most likely injuring passengers who weren’t fastened into their seatbelts. There was probably a brief moment of weightlessness for the passengers when the jet plummeted 178 feet in under a second.
On May 21, turbulence tossed passengers and their belongings throughout the cabin of a Boeing 777 en route from London to Singapore. Investigations are continuing into the incident that occurred over an hour after the jet made an emergency landing in Bangkok. According to passengers, there was “sheer terror” as the plane shook, objects flew everywhere, and injured individuals lay immobilized on the cabin’s floor.
