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Wow, this is intense... an Air Europa Airbus A330 flying Madrid to Buenos Aires unexpectedly flew into a severe hailstorm. The photos in the story show the obvious damage... a hole smashed in the nose, and windshields have to be replaced, half the passengers on board got sick from the intense turbulence... but the plane landed safely.
I loved the first comment...
Quote:
If anything, this is just a testament to how safe modern air travel has become. Regardless, that's going to be a hell of a repair bill to the radome, windscreens, and who knows how much of the wing and stab's leading edges...
Wow, this is intense... an Air Europa Airbus A330 flying Madrid to Buenos Aires unexpectedly flew into a severe hailstorm. The photos in the story show the obvious damage... a hole smashed in the nose, and windshields have to be replaced, half the passengers on board got sick from the intense turbulence... but the plane landed safely.
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Louisiana: Eastern New Orleans area [interesting write-up w/photos about 1/3rd of the way down the page]
1988 - 737 flew through hail, both engines flaming out. Crew brought the aircraft down without power, onto an earthen levee at a NASA facility in New Orleans. No injuries or further damaged was incurred during the landing.
Been there, done that. I was a flight attendant on a flight from West Palm to Dulles where we got caught in a severe hail storm. Passengers throwing up and screaming, stuff flying through the cabin, overhead bins coming open, it was awful. This was on A320 about ten years ago.
Been there, done that. I was a flight attendant on a flight from West Palm to Dulles where we got caught in a severe hail storm. Passengers throwing up and screaming, stuff flying through the cabin, overhead bins coming open, it was awful. This was on A320 about ten years ago.
I'm guessing this was United?
I flew ATL-EWR in July and our 717 tried to land in a t-storm which the plane went through some moderate to (at least I want to say) somewhat severe turbulence which included an aborted landing. No hail though and no sick pax thought. Scary? To say the least.
It doesn't sound good flying to Brazil with the Itcz
The ITCZ is a puppy dog over the Amazon...way overrated. Yeah there's convection but the stuff is heavily scattered, you can go around most of it. The cells are really tall and kinda thin and widely scattered enough, we never seem to deviate very much at all. If you're going through their at night, you won't even notice when you cross
I have flown back and forth across the ITCZ numerous times both day and night as I live in Arg, my family in the U.S. My dad was a professional capt'n ( deceased ) so I'm not a pilot but the ITCZ over Brazil and the Amazon is no biggie at all. Everytime we go through there it's sometimes a little bumpy as you approach the equator either from the north or south, this is due to sudden directional changes in the upper-level jetstreams as you begin to cross the area but it's usually very minimal in my experience....besides, alot of times if you're cruising across the ITCZ and get up around FL 380 or FL40...it's as smoothe as glass....
I think the weather coming off of the Colombian Coast into the Carribean ( usually lot's of lightning and weather, convective activity in that area ) can be pretty intense. Or, down in Argentina in the pampas around Buenos Aires. I've flown out of there and been rocking and a rolling" a few times through some decent turbulence down there....way worse than the weather in the ITCZ..
Also crossing the Andes down around LaPaz Bolivia, it gets a little bumpy down there sometimes....even so, not too much...
If you want to read all of this. Here are my recollections from a discussion I had about this with my deceased father who was a professional pilot, capt'n, check-airmen and had retired with thousands of flight hours before he passed. This is what I remember him telling me....if you want to read it:
Dad told me that flight crews will do everything they can to avoid flying through a thunderstorm cell. He also mentioned that todays aircraft have excellent Doppler radar that extends out in the front of the aircraft like a cone and can be adjusted to different views to help the crew see the weather that's in front of them at different depths and angles. However, my father said, depending on individual experience, some captains and first-officers are better at reading onboard radar than others, it takes time and epxerience to get good at it. Of course they also use visual, especially at night, using the moon or the ambient light of flashing lightning in front of or around the aircraft approaching a thunderstrom cell, as well as radar.
Beyond that they have ATC and also what is known as "pilot reports" or "pi-reps" which are reports from other aircraft in the immediate vincinity, or just ahead who have already passed through an area of convective activity and will report flight conditions and/or turbulence/weather at given altitudes that they experienced and send that information to ATC or to other aircraft behind them approaching the area they just went through.
My dad said that he has deviated up to 80 nautical miles before, especially when flying in the midwest or central US and confronting thick, fast moving squal lines of weather or fast moving fronts that produce large thunderstorms. However, the thunderstorms in the southern US, especiallyin Florida and/or the tropics which are associated with summer heating, they are usually more widely scattered and slow moving so they are much easier to spot on radar or visually for the pilots to go around or even in some cases fly over, depending on the aircraft's capabilities, fuel to weight, wind speed, direction etc and the height of the cloud tops of the cell..
However, Dad told me when confronting severe weather fronts or long and deep squal lines of severe weather associated with cold-fronts it's very different. Normally the pilots will visually ( or by using radar ) look for "holes" or areas between cells where they can "squeeze" through to the other side. Or they look on radar for the "softest" side of the thunderstorm cells or cell and try to penetrate those areas as opposed to the "darker reds" and "purples" that show up on their radar: these are the areas of more severe turbulence and pilots are trained to spot those on radar and strategize in advance how to avoid them. My dad said generally topping these larger thunderstorms is usually out of the question as a typical thunderstorm such as these often have tops approaching anywhere from FL450 to FL550, or even FL60....way to high for most commerical transports.
The way I remember it as he described it to me was: When they're approaching a line of tall, long and deep thunderstorms, sometimes they'll deviate a bit and fly along the leading edge of the front until they can find a "hole" or a "softer sided cell" on radar and visually and then basically buckle up and "punch through" were his words. However, what does happen is sometimes as they go through these holes or soft spots between 2 thunderstorms, the cells can be tightly packed and will close up and collide around the aircraft as they are going through, and this often causes alot of the reports you hear about flying through thunderstorms with severe turubulence and bad experiences. Generally safety was NEVER an issue, just a very uncomfortable ride. He said flight-crews will never intentionally fly directly through the heart of a thunderstrom cell unless they have "asbolutely no choice" but this is really really rare given ATC and the quality of weather avoidance radar. There is the danger of violent updrafts and icing, which my father said really is one of the most dangerous issues of penetrating weather, as he seemd to note that "icing" was the biggest threat. However, professional pilots are trained to asses weather and strategize a solution "before" they get to the weather as they approach it and usually are able to deal with the weather well in advance and quite easily, and go around, over or through holes and softer sides of cells without incident. I remember dad saying that the worst weather will be found between 7,000 and 20,000 feet, so going under is never an option.
Sometimes however, the weather deteriorates while in route to a given destination and sometimes they'll hold and wait for the weather on the field to clear, depending on fuel. But if not, their are times when they just have to kind of "go for it" and make the approach. However, usually if the weather continues to be fairly severe and doesn't clear, flight-crews will deviate to the nearest alternate to avoid really severe stuff. It just depends
Last edited by EricOldTime; 09-19-2014 at 09:27 AM..
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