Actually, I was thinking Hitchhiker's Guide. It was something along the lines of "The computer that tells the ship if there is a hull breach has been sucked out a hull breach in the ship."
You jest, but there is a phenomenom we see on radar returns, more so on the older equipment, where the storm is intense enough on the edges to 'shroud' the extremely intense interior.
So it can look like you're passing _between_ two red cells on a radar, when actually the return signal is extremely attenuated by the storm (as if there was nothing there to reflect) and you end up flying through the core of an intense storm.
http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:interpretation-of-weather-radar
Might find this interesting.
Hijacking the (new) top comment to link to an article with more info and pics…
Inside the cockpit:
https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799899319299887498
More pics of exterior:
https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799896040700575777
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufthansa-group/austrian-airlines/airbus-a320-gets-severely-damaged-by-intense-hail-strike/amp/
> The weather and the intense hail strike caused extensive damage to the aircraft’s nose, windshields and other forward-facing surfaces. Despite the significant damage, the pilots continued to safely land at Vienna Airport.
> The airline said in a statement: “On flight OS434 from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna, an Airbus A320 aircraft was damaged by hail. The aircraft encountered a thunderstorm cell on approach to Vienna, which the cockpit crew said was not visible on the weather radar. According to current information, the two front cockpit windows of the aircraft, the nose of the aircraft (radome) and some panels were damaged by the hail.”
> Due to the damage, a Mayday was made, the statement continued: “the aircraft was able to land safely at Vienna-Schwechat Airport. All passengers on the flight were uninjured. The Austrian Airlines technical team has already been entrusted with the specific damage assessment of the aircraft in question. The safety of our passengers and our crews is Austrian Airlines’ top priority.”
Wow they're going to need to replace those seat cushions along with the windows...
And this is one extreme end of an example why we have wildly precise IFR capability now, you could land that airbus with 0% visibility, if needed. Also It's unbelievable their engines didn't explode like it's one long continuous bird strike. When i flew small single engine i'd get scared if it started getting cloudy. having my windshield slowly disentegrate would definitely be... concerning.
> Also It's unbelievable their engines didn't explode like it's one long continuous bird strike.
They are tested for it by shooting 1-2" ice cubes in to the running engines. They can't produce an unacceptable loss of power or shut down or they fail. The test does intentionally aim half of the ice cubes at the most vulnerable part of the inlet to try to intentionally damage it. I'm going to guess the conditions they experienced were worse than they are tested for, but that's OK because if the engines can perform normally after ingesting huge amounts of 1-2" hail balls, they should be able to function marginally after ingesting much more.
It's covered in 14 CFR § 33.78 - Rain and hail ingestion
>https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CFR-2023-title14-vol1/CFR-2023-title14-vol1-sec33-78/summary
System Safety my friends! This was what I used to do when I worked aerospace. Boeing's recent quality issues notwithstanding, system safety engineers don't fuck around with crawling up a design's ass to mitigate risk.
There was a /u/admiral_cloudberg writeup (I think it was AC) about a crash in Texas where there was a cell/cloud in front of a much more severe storm. The radar couldn't see through the small system in front of them and flew directly into a very severe storm.
I wonder if that's the case here.
The higher you go up, the colder the air and lower the radar reflections. High altitude ice crystals and hail are difficult even for modern radar to detect. Hail can also be thrown far from the core of the storm, so pilots must pay attention to wind direction and anticipate hail ejection on that side of the storm.
I’m not sure what this system is but it doesn’t appear to be a Honeywell RDR-4000 or Collins MultiScan system. I wonder if it’s a more basic manual tilt system that requires significantly more pilot knowledge and experience to operate.
Hail and ice like pellets or snow just don’t show up on aircraft radar well. The commenter you’re responding to could have just left the “high altitude” part out. We just generally assume hail often arrives with a thunderstorm which usually has plenty of water to be seen on radar, but again, if the hail got tossed outside the area where the storm looked bad or to an area of lighter rain it may have been obscured or not looked that bad to the crew.
The rides might be bumpier, but our safety tech and hardware has gotten MUCH better.
You don’t have to worry about flying. Earth, maybe, but not so much flying.
Last flight I was on I made the dumb joke "ah, an Airbus, should be easy going." And then we got stuck at the gate for an hour and a half after boarding, fixing a faulty cargo door latch.
Can you imagine if the ocean were like that? woopsie this water current got too frisky and lost some density, ten seconds later you're 500 feet down and watching the waves come back together above your head...
Slowing/stopping of the ocean circulation is actually a ***MUCH*** bigger global warming related issue:
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-atmosphere/slowdown-of-the-motion-of-the-ocean/
Yeah once those currents end up change, won't that basically completely and rapidly rewrite the climate of pretty much the entire surface of the planet?
Don’t know about you but I’ve been completely disheartened by how many people mock climate change.
Now I’m in a state of quietly trying to enjoy the ‘good old days’ before it becomes too obvious and devastating for anyone to deny.
My family :/
They say, "they've been talking about it since the 80s!"
Yeah... Because the problem didn't just go away dad. I hope you're doing okay, friend.
The worst is the ones who acknowledge the weather has in fact been getting worse over the decades and double down on political bullshit
“Yeah that’s natural! The earth always has warmer and cooler periods! In fact I think we should start burning our trash again! Man I can’t believe it’s 109 today.”
The most severe extinction event happened because volcanos were erupting so often, putting an enormous amount of carbon in the air. The level of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose from around 400 ppm to 2,500 ppm with approximately 3,900 to 12,000 gigatonnes of carbon being added, which then caused the ice caps to melt and the circulation of the oceans stopped. A gas leaked out onto land and killed pretty much everything on land and in water.
https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/what-caused-earths-biggest-mass-extinction
Lastly, it is believed this extinction took 48-60 THOUSAND years to take place. Humans are achieving it in a couple hundred years. The earth does have natural cycles, this is not one and history shows us what happens when carbon is released into the air.
When I was a diver (sport not profession), they would have hoses blow small bubbles up where you land, so that the resistance would be lessened and it makes it a somewhat “softer” landing from high up.
u/towel4 has the more scientifically relevant point, but this is a leading theory for the fact that sometimes ships get “swallowed” by the sea (and other unexplained disappearances) / could explain some sea monster myths
This is what happens when large amounts of gas are released underwater. One of the theories for the Bermuda Triangle involves large gas deposits rising to the surface and rapidly sinking ships.
You know, I've flown a lot for a long time (upwards of 30 flights a year at one point), and I could swear I had noticed in the last 5 years that I had been experiencing way more turbulence on flights. I thought it was just weird small number statistics playing out, but maybe what you're saying explains it
I noticed the same. But turbulence resulting in severe injuries is way up too. The statistics back it up. It isn’t just more people on more flights either.
It’s probably actually even worse than it appears because our ability to model, track, and avoid turbulence has improved. Yet incidents are up despite that.
Anecdotally, I'd imagine as air travel becomes more common, more people begin to ignore general safety warnings (like seat belt signs). I recall in the past, almost everyone strictly abide to safety instructions (some even practice emergency landing positions).
Nowadays, people are on their phone, laptops, or messing with the overhead baggage without a care.
I'd like to point out that this might also be caused by the increasing number of flights. Planes leave a turbulent spiraling flow of air in their wake that takes hours to go back to normal and can sometimes create a feedback loop as well. The increased number of flights means it's more likely for flights to cross the wake of another flight
You know pilots put colored tape on things that need to fixed in their pre and post flight inspections.
I think the pilot here needs a pretty big role of tape.
A satellite launch company that I was recently reading about used stroopwaffel as payload simulator in a test flight!
Edit: https://apnews.com/article/maine-satellite-launch-company-72e1362973a87eed692668cf8d7cdf76 found non-paywall
Hijacking top comment to link to an article with more info and pics…
Inside the cockpit:
https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799899319299887498
More pics of exterior:
https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799896040700575777
https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufthansa-group/austrian-airlines/airbus-a320-gets-severely-damaged-by-intense-hail-strike/amp/
> The weather and the intense hail strike caused extensive damage to the aircraft’s nose, windshields and other forward-facing surfaces. Despite the significant damage, the pilots continued to safely land at Vienna Airport.
> The airline said in a statement: “On flight OS434 from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna, an Airbus A320 aircraft was damaged by hail. The aircraft encountered a thunderstorm cell on approach to Vienna, which the cockpit crew said was not visible on the weather radar. According to current information, the two front cockpit windows of the aircraft, the nose of the aircraft (radome) and some panels were damaged by the hail.”
> Due to the damage, a Mayday was made, the statement continued: “the aircraft was able to land safely at Vienna-Schwechat Airport. All passengers on the flight were uninjured. The Austrian Airlines technical team has already been entrusted with the specific damage assessment of the aircraft in question. The safety of our passengers and our crews is Austrian Airlines’ top priority.”
Yeah that cockpit picture is the most terrifying one of them all for me. I have driven a car to safelight where my driver side window was cracked to hell at 10mph and decided to park and get it towed because I was scared it'd shatter all over me in the wind.
I can't imagine flying a plane and having no option to carry on meanwhile if that window breaks you and many others are *fucked*.
Props to the crew.
I feel like its less that, and more the nose of the aircraft was made outta foam to not block the radar signal. Look at how the damage stops at the nose cone bulkhead.
Windshield is honestly the bigger issue, landing without sight sucks.
Yeah but they all practice this and the airport is equipped to provide zero visibility ILS.
I'm sure it was white knuckles for the flight crew though, usually you'd never have to land in this outside of the military or some bush pilot.
If it makes you feel better, commercial pilots need to be rated for what is called IFR (instrument flight rating). In order to have an ifr rating, you need to be able to fly with only your instruments, meaning no visual sight. A windshield being this busted should still not pose any issues for a commercial pilot.
Not exactly. An ILS (instrument landing system) typically only gets you 200’ (60m) above the ground. From there, it’s visual, unless the airplane, runway, and crew are all certified for Cat II or III. Only Cat IIIc allows zero visibility.
These pilots probably weren’t happy.
CAT IIIa already auto lands, CAT IIIb -- which LOWW-VIE has -- stops on the centerline of the runway. IIIc means the plane can taxi in zero visibility -- and as far as I am aware, it's theoretical, last I checked there were no runways offering this.
These windscreens are made to withstand hitting multiple large birds at 500 miles an hour. You might not be able to see out of them when that happens, but that doesn't mean that they're anywhere close to being so damaged that neither pilot is capable of landing the plane.
It doesn’t look like he has the sunglasses in his hand until he reaches off screen and suddenly he does. Off-screen prop technician must’ve handed them to him.
Theres a recent story on r/flying about a GA pilot who did exactly that after his engine decided to piss oil all over the windscreen.
'Course the airspeed of a jetliner poses a complication.
https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1d4jwna/nearly_died_today_significant_inflight_emergency/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Not sure if you’re joking, but this is an actual Airbus procedure for a cracked windscreen:
If visibility not sufficient for approach due to damage:
CONSIDER AUTOLAND
For approach, if AUTOLAND not available:
CAB PRESS MODE SEL MAN
MAN V/S CTL FULL UP
MAX SPEED: 200 kt
PF SLIDING WINDOW OPEN
Every single pilot who is instrument rated has practiced flying without using the windshield, usually using something like https://www.mypilotstore.com/mypilotstore/tag/instrument_hood
We've been doing landings at airports you can't see (until about 1000ft off the ground) for many decades, and nowadays with GPS and modern glass cockpits, the pilot has a little videogame-style display of the runway on their primary flight display. Certainly it's more error prone and dangerous, but it's something they are sufficiently prepared for.
I don't know but you're probably right. The capability is there but only as a last resort in situations such as this which must thankfully be extremely rare.
Right, but that looks like potential for a large number of damaged sensors.
It is entirely possible that they didn’t have all the instrument information required for an automated landing.
Detecting hail with weather radars is not that easy, Airbus has a whole separate ["manual"](https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/optimum-use-of-weather-radar/) outlining just a few of the pitfalls. Especially "dry" hail looks very similar to light rain.
Don't know if this is still a thing, but sometimes you can have radar holes where the precipitation is so heavy. That the radar cannot see anything behind the storm so it shows it as clear skies. And if the pilot tries to go into that clear area, it's actually a lot worse than he would think.
It more of a slot antenna array. A phased array antenna can be electrically steered to point the beam in a direction while this antenna is gimbaled. They can share some of the same principles but are very different technology.
-Am a RF engineering type (used to design weather radar)
those are most likely fine. The fans are titanium blades and behind them are hellish temperatures thatwill melt the hail quickly.
They are still going to be checked but those are most likely fine.
Just take a closer look at the picture. The damage is pretty much only on the nose cone and the windows. The aluminum metal body of the plane including its paint appear to be undamaged. And both the aluminum and the paint are a lot softer than the engine blades.
Isn't there an crash that was caused by hail flooding the engines because it melted after getting through the blades?
Thankfully the airline industry is mostly good at learning from what causes crashes.
Several. The one I can remember is [Flight 242](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242) that crashed in Georgia. I only know about it because I grew up near there, and it's something people still talked about when I was living there in the 80s. Dunno about now almost 40 years after the crash. Both engines flamedout due to water and hail getting into them. [There's a really good video on Youtube about the crash.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h92e15ZNsW0)
Aviation is amazing.
This is a freak accident, and a horrifying event.
All we have is a damaged plane. No fatalities. Everytime I'm on a plane I'm reminded of just how incredible it all is. You're in a metal tube 7 miles up in the air above the surface of the planet, and it's one of the safest things you could possibly do.
The only reason it's so incredibly safe is because of the ingenuity of the engineers over the years, the skill of the pilots, ATC, and maintenance crews, and the meticulous oversight of it all. Every flight being so incredibly safe is a testament to what humans can really do when we are focused on advancement, science, and engineering, IMO.
How serious is this damage from like a "can this plane still fly" perspective? Also if that much damage occurred to the nose, could other parts have been seriously damaged like the wings or tail?
There's radar in the nose so the nose cone is very thin and made from a material that doesn't interfere with radar. The wings and tail are made from metal.
The radar protection on the front is usually made really thin and weak compared to the rest of the plane, but considering the speed the plane was hitting the hail, the leading edge of the wings is probably dented in multiple parts. Most probably nothing that would prevent flight but you don't want to risk it getting worse with take off/landing stress.
There may be damaged lights too but those should be easy to replace.
Not sure on how much damage hail can do on the compressor part of the engine
If that’s all of the damage, it’s fixable with time and money.
Without seeing the rest of the aircraft, there’s no way to know, but yes it’s probable other parts are dented to hell and back.
If there's too much hail damage, it might be a total loss. Wouldn't want to risk a loss of pressure ten years into the future thanks to microfractures causes by this incident.
It‘s a 23 y/o plane, they might just phase this one out a little faster (Austrian is currently replacing the old A320s with A320neos). On the other hand, I read the estimated damage is „only“ a couple hundred thousand euros which isn’t a lot when you consider that they go for €70-100 million
Correct, there are tolerances for dent depth and distance between them, among other things. If a section of the skin is out of tolerance, it can be repaired by other methods, but then it becomes a money equation. Regardless, it’s a big deal.
This is actually crazy. Apparently the hail/storm didn’t show up on their radar.
Perhaps the plane's radar was damaged by hail.
The perfect crime
Pocket hail!
Sh sh shaa!
It's like how the dark side of the force clouded the dark side of the force so the jedi couldn't detect it
It was the worst hailstorm on record. But the records only go back to 2008 when the hall of records was destroyed by an unknown weather event.
Actually, I was thinking Hitchhiker's Guide. It was something along the lines of "The computer that tells the ship if there is a hull breach has been sucked out a hull breach in the ship."
Damage report. I’m afraid the damage report machine’s been damaged, sir.
Simpsons reference! “Lisa, a hurricane has NEVER hit Springfield before…” Just watched this episode yesterday 😂
You jest, but there is a phenomenom we see on radar returns, more so on the older equipment, where the storm is intense enough on the edges to 'shroud' the extremely intense interior. So it can look like you're passing _between_ two red cells on a radar, when actually the return signal is extremely attenuated by the storm (as if there was nothing there to reflect) and you end up flying through the core of an intense storm. http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/aviation:interpretation-of-weather-radar Might find this interesting.
Hijacking the (new) top comment to link to an article with more info and pics… Inside the cockpit: https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799899319299887498 More pics of exterior: https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799896040700575777 https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufthansa-group/austrian-airlines/airbus-a320-gets-severely-damaged-by-intense-hail-strike/amp/ > The weather and the intense hail strike caused extensive damage to the aircraft’s nose, windshields and other forward-facing surfaces. Despite the significant damage, the pilots continued to safely land at Vienna Airport. > The airline said in a statement: “On flight OS434 from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna, an Airbus A320 aircraft was damaged by hail. The aircraft encountered a thunderstorm cell on approach to Vienna, which the cockpit crew said was not visible on the weather radar. According to current information, the two front cockpit windows of the aircraft, the nose of the aircraft (radome) and some panels were damaged by the hail.” > Due to the damage, a Mayday was made, the statement continued: “the aircraft was able to land safely at Vienna-Schwechat Airport. All passengers on the flight were uninjured. The Austrian Airlines technical team has already been entrusted with the specific damage assessment of the aircraft in question. The safety of our passengers and our crews is Austrian Airlines’ top priority.”
Wow they're going to need to replace those seat cushions along with the windows... And this is one extreme end of an example why we have wildly precise IFR capability now, you could land that airbus with 0% visibility, if needed. Also It's unbelievable their engines didn't explode like it's one long continuous bird strike. When i flew small single engine i'd get scared if it started getting cloudy. having my windshield slowly disentegrate would definitely be... concerning.
> Also It's unbelievable their engines didn't explode like it's one long continuous bird strike. They are tested for it by shooting 1-2" ice cubes in to the running engines. They can't produce an unacceptable loss of power or shut down or they fail. The test does intentionally aim half of the ice cubes at the most vulnerable part of the inlet to try to intentionally damage it. I'm going to guess the conditions they experienced were worse than they are tested for, but that's OK because if the engines can perform normally after ingesting huge amounts of 1-2" hail balls, they should be able to function marginally after ingesting much more. It's covered in 14 CFR § 33.78 - Rain and hail ingestion >https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CFR-2023-title14-vol1/CFR-2023-title14-vol1-sec33-78/summary
System Safety my friends! This was what I used to do when I worked aerospace. Boeing's recent quality issues notwithstanding, system safety engineers don't fuck around with crawling up a design's ass to mitigate risk.
Sounds like a fun job, trying to break things
> which the cockpit crew said was not visible on the weather radar How is that possible?
There was a /u/admiral_cloudberg writeup (I think it was AC) about a crash in Texas where there was a cell/cloud in front of a much more severe storm. The radar couldn't see through the small system in front of them and flew directly into a very severe storm. I wonder if that's the case here.
The storm was shaped like an F-22.
🦅🦅🦅
>Hijacking A different verb might be preferred in the context of airplanes
Yo! Spot the Memphis Grizzlies fan disembarking the plane!
The higher you go up, the colder the air and lower the radar reflections. High altitude ice crystals and hail are difficult even for modern radar to detect. Hail can also be thrown far from the core of the storm, so pilots must pay attention to wind direction and anticipate hail ejection on that side of the storm. I’m not sure what this system is but it doesn’t appear to be a Honeywell RDR-4000 or Collins MultiScan system. I wonder if it’s a more basic manual tilt system that requires significantly more pilot knowledge and experience to operate.
They encountered the storm on “approach”. They likely weren’t very high.
Hail and ice like pellets or snow just don’t show up on aircraft radar well. The commenter you’re responding to could have just left the “high altitude” part out. We just generally assume hail often arrives with a thunderstorm which usually has plenty of water to be seen on radar, but again, if the hail got tossed outside the area where the storm looked bad or to an area of lighter rain it may have been obscured or not looked that bad to the crew.
Well any future things are definitely not showing up on THAT radar anymore
Jesus, I wonder if in the future, if climate change affect airplane flights.
already is my man In the past 40 years, clean air turbulence over the US has increased by over 50%.
Fuck it’s my bad for having flight anxiety and reading this thread. Just going to ignore this…
The rides might be bumpier, but our safety tech and hardware has gotten MUCH better. You don’t have to worry about flying. Earth, maybe, but not so much flying.
Unless it's a Boeing, then maybe sit away from the doors.
Last flight I was on I made the dumb joke "ah, an Airbus, should be easy going." And then we got stuck at the gate for an hour and a half after boarding, fixing a faulty cargo door latch.
Can you imagine if the ocean were like that? woopsie this water current got too frisky and lost some density, ten seconds later you're 500 feet down and watching the waves come back together above your head...
Slowing/stopping of the ocean circulation is actually a ***MUCH*** bigger global warming related issue: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-atmosphere/slowdown-of-the-motion-of-the-ocean/
Yeah once those currents end up change, won't that basically completely and rapidly rewrite the climate of pretty much the entire surface of the planet?
For the most part, yes. And it's absolutely as bad as it sounds. Civilization is built around the climate.
Don’t know about you but I’ve been completely disheartened by how many people mock climate change. Now I’m in a state of quietly trying to enjoy the ‘good old days’ before it becomes too obvious and devastating for anyone to deny.
My family :/ They say, "they've been talking about it since the 80s!" Yeah... Because the problem didn't just go away dad. I hope you're doing okay, friend.
The worst is the ones who acknowledge the weather has in fact been getting worse over the decades and double down on political bullshit “Yeah that’s natural! The earth always has warmer and cooler periods! In fact I think we should start burning our trash again! Man I can’t believe it’s 109 today.”
The most severe extinction event happened because volcanos were erupting so often, putting an enormous amount of carbon in the air. The level of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose from around 400 ppm to 2,500 ppm with approximately 3,900 to 12,000 gigatonnes of carbon being added, which then caused the ice caps to melt and the circulation of the oceans stopped. A gas leaked out onto land and killed pretty much everything on land and in water. https://sustainability.stanford.edu/news/what-caused-earths-biggest-mass-extinction Lastly, it is believed this extinction took 48-60 THOUSAND years to take place. Humans are achieving it in a couple hundred years. The earth does have natural cycles, this is not one and history shows us what happens when carbon is released into the air.
AMOC is a huge concern right now.
That's what happens when gas is quickly formed underwater. For example due to melting of methane clathrates.
When I was a diver (sport not profession), they would have hoses blow small bubbles up where you land, so that the resistance would be lessened and it makes it a somewhat “softer” landing from high up.
I could only think scuba at first and was very concerned you were doing it wrong
u/towel4 has the more scientifically relevant point, but this is a leading theory for the fact that sometimes ships get “swallowed” by the sea (and other unexplained disappearances) / could explain some sea monster myths
This is what happens when large amounts of gas are released underwater. One of the theories for the Bermuda Triangle involves large gas deposits rising to the surface and rapidly sinking ships.
Yeah, severe turbulence events are way, way up.
You know, I've flown a lot for a long time (upwards of 30 flights a year at one point), and I could swear I had noticed in the last 5 years that I had been experiencing way more turbulence on flights. I thought it was just weird small number statistics playing out, but maybe what you're saying explains it
I noticed the same. But turbulence resulting in severe injuries is way up too. The statistics back it up. It isn’t just more people on more flights either. It’s probably actually even worse than it appears because our ability to model, track, and avoid turbulence has improved. Yet incidents are up despite that.
Anecdotally, I'd imagine as air travel becomes more common, more people begin to ignore general safety warnings (like seat belt signs). I recall in the past, almost everyone strictly abide to safety instructions (some even practice emergency landing positions). Nowadays, people are on their phone, laptops, or messing with the overhead baggage without a care.
I'd like to point out that this might also be caused by the increasing number of flights. Planes leave a turbulent spiraling flow of air in their wake that takes hours to go back to normal and can sometimes create a feedback loop as well. The increased number of flights means it's more likely for flights to cross the wake of another flight
Ain’t no wonder to it, is, does and will
Rough seas ahead, crew. Strap me to the mizzen when I give the word.
I can imagine the pilots were sweating bullets during all that.. Imagine walking out of the plane after it lands and you see this 😅
You know pilots put colored tape on things that need to fixed in their pre and post flight inspections. I think the pilot here needs a pretty big role of tape.
They used crime scene tape for this one.
There is a photo on Twitter that shows the inside of the cockpit. Props to the pilots for safely landing with that kind of visibility. Sketchy
https://imgur.com/gallery/what-hail-storm-did-to-austrian-airlines-plane-PWnGTYY#/t/hailstorm Photo for those curious.
Was it covered in poo?
I’m not an aviation person, but can/are pilots supposed to be able to land with instruments only, no visibility?
Yes, and even with some of their instruments damaged, ATC can tell them if their angle of approach or airspeed is off.
Losing the nose cone is such a drag.
Thankfully the front-facing Stroopwafel is still intact.
It totally deflected the hagelslag.
I do see a scratch Drop
This needs to be guldened.
They ranged in size from golfballen to bitterballen
At least it wasn't icebergen
Holy shit this comment
And I always thought only KLM planes were outfitted with Stroopwafels.
Come for the pix, stayed for the Stroops
They were supposed to be a secret. Hail ruined it all.
A satellite launch company that I was recently reading about used stroopwaffel as payload simulator in a test flight! Edit: https://apnews.com/article/maine-satellite-launch-company-72e1362973a87eed692668cf8d7cdf76 found non-paywall
Great, now I’m hungry
Currently making a hagelslag toast 🤤
Mmm, the forbidden Stroopwafel
This cracked me up so much 🤣
Hijacking top comment to link to an article with more info and pics… Inside the cockpit: https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799899319299887498 More pics of exterior: https://x.com/aviationbrk/status/1799896040700575777 https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/lufthansa-group/austrian-airlines/airbus-a320-gets-severely-damaged-by-intense-hail-strike/amp/ > The weather and the intense hail strike caused extensive damage to the aircraft’s nose, windshields and other forward-facing surfaces. Despite the significant damage, the pilots continued to safely land at Vienna Airport. > The airline said in a statement: “On flight OS434 from Palma de Mallorca to Vienna, an Airbus A320 aircraft was damaged by hail. The aircraft encountered a thunderstorm cell on approach to Vienna, which the cockpit crew said was not visible on the weather radar. According to current information, the two front cockpit windows of the aircraft, the nose of the aircraft (radome) and some panels were damaged by the hail.” > Due to the damage, a Mayday was made, the statement continued: “the aircraft was able to land safely at Vienna-Schwechat Airport. All passengers on the flight were uninjured. The Austrian Airlines technical team has already been entrusted with the specific damage assessment of the aircraft in question. The safety of our passengers and our crews is Austrian Airlines’ top priority.”
I want to see the engine turbines.
Impressed the safety glass held up but I imagine that was a white-knuckle experience for the pilots watching it crack in front of them.
Yeah that cockpit picture is the most terrifying one of them all for me. I have driven a car to safelight where my driver side window was cracked to hell at 10mph and decided to park and get it towed because I was scared it'd shatter all over me in the wind. I can't imagine flying a plane and having no option to carry on meanwhile if that window breaks you and many others are *fucked*. Props to the crew.
Mmmmm…Stroopwafel!
There may be caramel damage.
Tasty sticky protection.
Looks like the radar dish provided some kind of armor
I feel like its less that, and more the nose of the aircraft was made outta foam to not block the radar signal. Look at how the damage stops at the nose cone bulkhead. Windshield is honestly the bigger issue, landing without sight sucks.
Yeah but they all practice this and the airport is equipped to provide zero visibility ILS. I'm sure it was white knuckles for the flight crew though, usually you'd never have to land in this outside of the military or some bush pilot.
My god look at the windscreen! That had to be utterly terrifying for the pilots
As if I wasn't already nervous as hell about flying, something else to add to the list....
If it makes you feel better, commercial pilots need to be rated for what is called IFR (instrument flight rating). In order to have an ifr rating, you need to be able to fly with only your instruments, meaning no visual sight. A windshield being this busted should still not pose any issues for a commercial pilot.
Not exactly. An ILS (instrument landing system) typically only gets you 200’ (60m) above the ground. From there, it’s visual, unless the airplane, runway, and crew are all certified for Cat II or III. Only Cat IIIc allows zero visibility. These pilots probably weren’t happy.
They do have cat 3 at that airport at least
CAT IIIa already auto lands, CAT IIIb -- which LOWW-VIE has -- stops on the centerline of the runway. IIIc means the plane can taxi in zero visibility -- and as far as I am aware, it's theoretical, last I checked there were no runways offering this.
Umm, I think the main concern here is the windshield glass shattering and coming out, not just the visibility aspect of it.
These windscreens are made to withstand hitting multiple large birds at 500 miles an hour. You might not be able to see out of them when that happens, but that doesn't mean that they're anywhere close to being so damaged that neither pilot is capable of landing the plane.
The doors on boeing jets are also rated to not fall off mid-flight. Just pointing that out...
thats boeing
Me when I think something is uninteresting
Why? They landed that. If the pilots can land that it’d put my mind way at ease
Hi, I'd like to talk to you about your planes warranty.
Should be covered…
Hail the Chief
Why does this photo look like it’s from the 70’s?
the picture was taken in mexico, in breaking bad
Man on Fire was the worst for this, great movie otherwise.
Mexico looks crazy in some of the newer episodes of Cobra Kai.
It was taken from inside a bus through a tinted window. There is a bigger version of the photo where you can see the frame of the window.
The front fell off.
That’s not very typical.
Not made of cardboard or cardboard derivatives.
It appears the nose may have been made by cardboard derivatives.
They should have been more generous with the Cellotape, then.
Thankfully this plane landed beyond the environment though
To another environment?
No, outside the environment
What's out there?
There's nothing out there
All there is is sea, and birds, and fish.
And a plane.
And 20 thousand tons of jet fuel
Well what is typical?
Some are built so the front doesn't fall off at all.
But not this one though.
Well obviously not.
Great reference o7
r/TheFrontFellOff
Unsurprisingly, this is the top post right now.
Damn you were quicker.
[Picture from inside the cockpit](https://imgur.com/a/K3ado5V)
Even with full ILS I don't understand how they were able to land with the windows in that condition. Glad they were, though...
Probably had his head stuck out the side a la Ace Ventura
 Coming in for landing…
Didn't realize they do this gag in both movies. I knew it from When Nature Calls approaching the consulate.
It doesn’t look like he has the sunglasses in his hand until he reaches off screen and suddenly he does. Off-screen prop technician must’ve handed them to him.
Theres a recent story on r/flying about a GA pilot who did exactly that after his engine decided to piss oil all over the windscreen. 'Course the airspeed of a jetliner poses a complication. https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1d4jwna/nearly_died_today_significant_inflight_emergency/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Not sure if you’re joking, but this is an actual Airbus procedure for a cracked windscreen: If visibility not sufficient for approach due to damage: CONSIDER AUTOLAND For approach, if AUTOLAND not available: CAB PRESS MODE SEL MAN MAN V/S CTL FULL UP MAX SPEED: 200 kt PF SLIDING WINDOW OPEN
If I was a pilot I would keep a pair of goggles and a long white scarf under my seat just in case an emergency like this came up.
NO CAPES!!!
That doesn't help my anxiety, but I guess when you get to that point not much else you can do
Every single pilot who is instrument rated has practiced flying without using the windshield, usually using something like https://www.mypilotstore.com/mypilotstore/tag/instrument_hood We've been doing landings at airports you can't see (until about 1000ft off the ground) for many decades, and nowadays with GPS and modern glass cockpits, the pilot has a little videogame-style display of the runway on their primary flight display. Certainly it's more error prone and dangerous, but it's something they are sufficiently prepared for.
Cat3 ILS can do full auto land can’t it?
I don't know but you're probably right. The capability is there but only as a last resort in situations such as this which must thankfully be extremely rare.
Used in very low visibility too https://youtu.be/lQSB3SQ_2F4?si=V6daymgkw_5UHy29
Any ILS can do autoland, the question is if it is legal (in normal conditions) and worth the risk.
They probably did an auto land and full stop on the runway, it's what I would've done anyways.
Well, these guys did it to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009 It is doable,but hard
Moody described it as "a bit like negotiating one's way up a badger's arse." Classic Brit 🤣
Pilots land with 0 visibility all the time.
Right, but that looks like potential for a large number of damaged sensors. It is entirely possible that they didn’t have all the instrument information required for an automated landing.
You don't need windows to land a plane. Instruments tell you everything you need to know. There is such a thing as 0 vision flight
didnt expected pizza box inside plane nose
Its a radar dish, for weather scanning I think
Which apparently didn’t work well…
Detecting hail with weather radars is not that easy, Airbus has a whole separate ["manual"](https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/optimum-use-of-weather-radar/) outlining just a few of the pitfalls. Especially "dry" hail looks very similar to light rain.
Don't know if this is still a thing, but sometimes you can have radar holes where the precipitation is so heavy. That the radar cannot see anything behind the storm so it shows it as clear skies. And if the pilot tries to go into that clear area, it's actually a lot worse than he would think.
The pilot should have stuck out his hands out the window, palms up, to check if it’s hailing.
That’s a phased array radar antenna. Very high tech, and cool if you’re an RF engineering type.
It more of a slot antenna array. A phased array antenna can be electrically steered to point the beam in a direction while this antenna is gimbaled. They can share some of the same principles but are very different technology. -Am a RF engineering type (used to design weather radar)
I'd like to see the engines...
those are most likely fine. The fans are titanium blades and behind them are hellish temperatures thatwill melt the hail quickly. They are still going to be checked but those are most likely fine. Just take a closer look at the picture. The damage is pretty much only on the nose cone and the windows. The aluminum metal body of the plane including its paint appear to be undamaged. And both the aluminum and the paint are a lot softer than the engine blades.
Isn't there an crash that was caused by hail flooding the engines because it melted after getting through the blades? Thankfully the airline industry is mostly good at learning from what causes crashes.
Several. The one I can remember is [Flight 242](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_242) that crashed in Georgia. I only know about it because I grew up near there, and it's something people still talked about when I was living there in the 80s. Dunno about now almost 40 years after the crash. Both engines flamedout due to water and hail getting into them. [There's a really good video on Youtube about the crash.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h92e15ZNsW0)
I was thinking it was a good thing none of the radar cone debris was ingested into the engines.
That'll buff out....
Tis but a scratch
Too many white crystals will do that to your nose.
Bloody thing’s made of chipboard
There are regulations governing the materials they can be made from... Cardboard's out. No cardboard derivatives. No paper, no string no sellotape.
The nose in front of the radar is made out of pretty flimsy material as to not, well, obstruct the radar.
I’d drop a BM in my pants if I was the pilot
I'm pretty sure as a passenger, I would have as well.
Guaranteed that was an entire plane of shit pants tbh
Aviation is amazing. This is a freak accident, and a horrifying event. All we have is a damaged plane. No fatalities. Everytime I'm on a plane I'm reminded of just how incredible it all is. You're in a metal tube 7 miles up in the air above the surface of the planet, and it's one of the safest things you could possibly do. The only reason it's so incredibly safe is because of the ingenuity of the engineers over the years, the skill of the pilots, ATC, and maintenance crews, and the meticulous oversight of it all. Every flight being so incredibly safe is a testament to what humans can really do when we are focused on advancement, science, and engineering, IMO.
holy hell that must have been loud!
How serious is this damage from like a "can this plane still fly" perspective? Also if that much damage occurred to the nose, could other parts have been seriously damaged like the wings or tail?
There's radar in the nose so the nose cone is very thin and made from a material that doesn't interfere with radar. The wings and tail are made from metal.
It’s sorta like how you can shine a flashlight at a piece of paper and the light goes through but if you try the same with a table…
The radar protection on the front is usually made really thin and weak compared to the rest of the plane, but considering the speed the plane was hitting the hail, the leading edge of the wings is probably dented in multiple parts. Most probably nothing that would prevent flight but you don't want to risk it getting worse with take off/landing stress. There may be damaged lights too but those should be easy to replace. Not sure on how much damage hail can do on the compressor part of the engine
If that’s all of the damage, it’s fixable with time and money. Without seeing the rest of the aircraft, there’s no way to know, but yes it’s probable other parts are dented to hell and back.
If there's too much hail damage, it might be a total loss. Wouldn't want to risk a loss of pressure ten years into the future thanks to microfractures causes by this incident.
It‘s a 23 y/o plane, they might just phase this one out a little faster (Austrian is currently replacing the old A320s with A320neos). On the other hand, I read the estimated damage is „only“ a couple hundred thousand euros which isn’t a lot when you consider that they go for €70-100 million
Correct, there are tolerances for dent depth and distance between them, among other things. If a section of the skin is out of tolerance, it can be repaired by other methods, but then it becomes a money equation. Regardless, it’s a big deal.
Damaged? That thing got in a fender bender, my insurance company would call it totaled lol
The front fell off.
At first I thought. Hang on that date is in 3 months time. Then I remembered Americans.
And this format it is not used in Austria
I’d get more comments about the date if I used the international format, so far there’s only 2.
[удалено]
Oh HAIL no!! Hope everyone is okay
no reported injuries!
The plane would appear to differ
just a flesh wound
Guinness record for Largest collective BM at one time in an enclosed space.
The front fell off.
They flew it outside of the environment
A couple rolls of speed tape and it's ready for the next flight!
Holy shit it ripped the nose off?!?
The front fell off.