Oh HAIL No!

Glad I wasn't on this flight!!

This seems like an extensive amount of hail damage. Good job on the pilots to get this thing on the ground safely.

http://foxsanantonio.com/news/nation-world/severe-weather-forces-american-airlines-flight-1897-to-divert-to-el-paso

 

Wow, that's some substantial damage. I wonder how much hail the engines ingested, and if they'll need fixing, too.

 

http://avherald.com/h?article=4b97224e&opt=0

Looking at this image i just wonder what the pilots were thinking that they would be OK trying to penetrate that cell unless there was a gap and it closed in on them like the Delta flight that had to divert to Denver in 2015?

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https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL1897/history/20180604/0000Z/KSAT/KELP

If you replay the flight tracking you see that they were at FL340 when they entered the cell.

 

Why did they have the plane flying in pattern waiting to land? I figured they would have declared an emergency? Did they have to burn fuel?

 

I'd say that was almost certainly the case. I highly doubt they said "let's just keep going straight ahead through this big nasty cell-- don't worry, it will be fine."

 

I wonder what that sounded like in the cockpit.

 

Judging from the map, I'm surprised that they didn't divert to Albuquerque...

 

when the glass breaks....loud

"Not a lot of forward visibility" is an understatement from that pilot

I had an outer pane break in a 727 because of this. When it caves into the inner pane it gets your attention. It feels like that inner pane is all that's protecting you from a shotgun blast to the face

 

Looks like ABQ is on the other side of the cell, ELP is not.... from that display...