Pilot lands plane despite hail storm smashing through windscreen, as passengers start screaming

11 June 2024, 06:17

A pilot managed to land a plane safely despite going through a hailstorm that destroyed the windscreen and damaged other components.

The Austrian Airlines flight was going from Mallorca to Vienna on Monday when it ran into the severe weather, which the pilots could not see on their monitoring equipment.

The pilot managed to bring the Airbus plane down safely despite the damage, and there were no reports of any injuries.

Austrian Airlines said in a statement: "Airbus A320 aircraft was damaged by hail on yesterday’s flight OS434 from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna.

The aircraft was caught in a thunderstorm cell on approach to Vienna, which according to the cockpit crew was not visible on the weather radar."

“According to current information, the two front cockpit windows of the aircraft, the nose of the aircraft [the “radome”] and some paneling were damaged by the hail.”

People on board said they could feel the hailstorm at the end of the flight.

"I think we were about 20 minutes from landing when we got into a cloud of hail and thunderstorm, and the turbulence started," passenger Emmeley Oakley said.

Oakley told ABC News: "We could definitely feel the hail coming down on the plane and it was quite loud and ofc super rocky for a minute."

Oakley said the worst turbulence only lasted for a few minutes, but it still caused some passengers to scream.

"The cabin crew did a really good job calming those people down though."

Oakley added: "It wasn’t until we exited that we saw the nose was missing!

"The pilots really did an excellent job keeping things as smooth and safe as they could."