A passenger plane miraculously landed on Sunday even though hail mangled the front of the plane and shattered the cockpit windshield.
The Austrian Airlines Airbus A320 was flying from Mallorca to Vienna when chunks of ice collided with the plane and its front windows.
The plane’s pilot was forced to land blind, and the passengers only realized the true extent of the damage – and their narrow escape – after the plane landed.
After taking off from Palma de Mallorca around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, the first stages of the flight were uneventful and experienced minor turbulence, passengers said.
However, according to the airline, the plane passed through a “storm cell” as it approached Vienna and about half an hour before landing.
The Austrian Airlines Airbus A320 was flying from Mallorca to Vienna when chunks of ice hit the plane and the front windows, damaging the nose and front windows.
According to the airline, the plane passed through a “storm cell” as it approached Vienna and about half an hour before landing.
Passengers described a “violent shaking” and the pilot alerted them that the windshield was broken.
Despite this, the plane was able to land in Vienna. The landing was “a little bumpier than normal,” a passenger told Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung.
Only when passengers disembarked and walked around the front of the plane did they realize the extent of the damage.
Images of the plane show the windshield shattered and the nose of the plane almost gone. What is still intact has round marks and dents.
“At that moment the passengers realized that the pilot had landed blind and how close they had come to disaster,” one of them told Kronen.
“It could have been different,” said the passenger, who was returning from Mallorca with a group after celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday.
Austrian Airlines confirmed the incident to the newspaper on Sunday afternoon.
“On today’s flight OS434 from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna, an Airbus A320 aircraft was damaged by hail,” the airline informed Kronen.
He explained that the plane encountered a “storm cell” as it approached Vienna and said the cabin crew had not seen the cell on weather radar.
“According to current information, the two front windows of the aircraft cabin, the nose of the aircraft (radome) and some panels were damaged by hail,” Kronen reported, citing the airline’s statement.
Passengers described a “violent shaking” and the pilot alerted them that the windshield was broken. But it was only when passengers disembarked and walked around the front of the plane that they realized the extent of the damage.
Austrian Airlines said an emergency call was made and emergency crews rushed to the airport before the plane landed.
Miraculously, the pilot was able to shoot down the plane despite damage to the windshield and everyone on board escaped unharmed.
‘The plane was able to land safely at Vienna-Schwechat airport. “All passengers on the flight were unharmed,” the airline told the newspaper.
«The technical team of Austrian Airlines has already been entrusted with the specific assessment of the damage to the aircraft in question. The safety of our passengers and crew is Austrian Airlines’ top priority.’
The near miss is the latest mid-air incident to make headlines in recent weeks.
Last month, a Singapore Airlines plane suffered severe turbulence that left one man, 73-year-old Briton Geoffrey Kitchen, dead and others seriously injured.
Flight SQ321 experienced huge changes in gravitational force in less than five seconds, likely causing injuries to people who were not buckled in their seats, according to a Singapore Ministry of Transport report released last month.
The near miss is the latest mid-air incident to make headlines in recent weeks. Last month, a Singapore Airlines plane (pictured) suffered severe turbulence that left one man, 73-year-old Briton Geoffrey Kitchen, dead and others seriously injured.
The plane fell 178 feet in less than a second, “probably causing the unbelted occupants to become airborne” before falling again, the Transportation Ministry said.
The Boeing 777, flying from London to Singapore on May 21, experienced turbulence that threw people and objects around the cabin. The plane, with 211 passengers and 18 crew, made an emergency landing in Bangkok.
As the plane flew at about 37,000 feet over southern Myanmar, it began to experience a slight vibration due to changes in gravitational force.
The plane’s altitude increased, likely caused by an updraft, not any action by the pilots, causing the autopilot system to push the plane back to the selected altitude, the report said.
Pilots also noticed an uncontrolled increase in airspeed, which they attempted to control by extending panels called speed brakes, and “one pilot yelled that the fasten seat belt sign had come on.”
Heartbreaking images taken on board after the incident showed the cabin littered with debris and oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling. The passengers had desperately tried to stop the blood flowing due to severe cuts and blunt injuries.
A few seconds later, the plane entered the steep drop that caused passengers without seat belts to be thrown out of their seats before falling backwards. “This sequence of events likely caused injuries to the crew and passengers,” the report said.
The pilots disengaged the autopilot to stabilize the plane, according to the report, and flew it manually for 21 seconds before returning to autopilot.
The plane made a normal, controlled descent and encountered no further turbulence until it landed in Bangkok almost an hour later, the ministry said, adding that investigations were ongoing.
Passengers have described the “sheer terror” of the plane shaking, loose objects flying and injured people lying paralyzed on the floor of the plane.