Severe thunderstorms pelted an American Airlines airbus plane en route to Phoenix with hail on Sunday evening causing the flight to divert to El Paso, Texas.
Pictures of what hail did to American Airlines jet before safe emergency landing in El Paso. Windshields shattered, nose ripped apart. 5 crew not hurt as they safely landed with 130 passengers on way to Phoenix from San Antonio. I’m sure it sounded bad too. Wow @FOX29philly pic.twitter.com/pDZBxWWlcS
— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) June 4, 2018
The plane was carrying 130 passengers and 5 crew members.
Thunderstorms erupted across central and western Texas Sunday afternoon and continued into the evening. Ground-based hail reports of up to tennis ball-sized were reported in the vicinity of where the plane was pelted.
Meteorologist Stu Ostro put together some visuals showing the plane’s movement superimposed onto radar imagery. The darker red and purple colors from radar on the top two images are indicative of heavy precipitation, while the white colors on the bottom left image suggest hail was falling.
Plot of locations (from log at https://t.co/Fl9aKcLmem) of #AA1897 flight, which encountered hail and severe turbulence https://t.co/OAHI5qSmD6 last night, on radar imagery and a 3-D view of the hail core pic.twitter.com/3E3Dg9Z8Wv
— Stu Ostro (@StuOstro) June 4, 2018
American Airlines is expected to conduct an inspection on the damaged plane.