Hail damages plane: Vienna-bound flight severely damaged

On Sunday evening, an aircraft was severely damaged by large hail during its approach to Vienna Airport in Austria. The Austrian Airlines plane flew into a hailstorm at about 18,000 feet altitude.

The cockpit windows were completely shattered by the hail. Fortunately, they were not broken and there was no loss of cabin pressure. The fairing on the nose of the fuselage containing the weather radar was also torn off.

The Airbus A320, which took off from Palma de Mallorca off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, remained operational and was able to land safely at Vienna’s International Airport after some delay. The passengers escaped with only a moment of shock.

An hour later, The same thunderstorm produced a tornado on the border between eastern Austria and Hungary. It has been an active couple of days across Europe, with major hail and flooding occurring. The video below shows the storminess across the continent:

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