Hail Damage Rattles A320 Passengers

The shattered radome and cracked windscreens of an Austrian Airlines A320 got viral coverage Sunday after the plane encountered hail from a cell on approach to Vienna-Scwechat Airport. The flight was on its way from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, when it hit the weather, which the airline said didn't show up on the crew's weather radar (which ironically took the brunt of the damage). "I think we were about 20 minutes from landing when we got into a cloud of hail and thunderstorm, and the turbulence started," Emmeley Oakley, a passenger on the flight, told ABC News.

The crew issued a Mayday, likely because of the suddenly opaque windscreens, but landed uneventfully. Passengers lauded the crew for calming their fears as they approached Vienna, but some weren't prepared for what seemed to be serious damage to the aircraft when they deplaned. "It wasn’t until we exited that we saw the nose was missing! The pilots really did an excellent job keeping things as smooth and safe as they could," Oakley said. The radome is a relatively thin fiberglass structure that is no match for hailstones at 200 knots.