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Hail Damaged Plane So Badly, It Forced a Landing

Scary storm cracked windshield, damaged nose
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2015 10:37 AM CDT
Hail Damaged Plane So Badly, It Forced a Landing
Damage by hail to the nose cone and windshield of a Delta flight Friday, Aug. 7, 2015.   (Beau Sorensen via AP)

Nervous fliers might want to go read anything else: A Delta flight headed from Boston to Salt Lake City last night ran into hail so severe that it cracked the windshield and severely bashed the nose, forcing an emergency in Denver, reports the Denver Post. "There were times when we felt like the air dropped out from under us. We could see lightning spider-webbing over the wings and hail pounding the plane," says a passenger. At fault was a nasty thunderstorm near Nebraska's border with Colorado; the Post reports that the Airbus A320 shook severely and plummeted some 14,000 in two minutes.

"Babies were crying. Some young teens behind me were screaming and crying," says the passenger. And that was without knowing what the damage to the front of the plane looked like: Once everyone aboard deplaned in Denver, passengers and crew alike took pictures of the damage, looking on in what the Post describes as "amazement." (More hail stories.)

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