American Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing Sunday Due to Weather-Related Damage
“On June 3, American Airlines flight 1897, from San Antonio to Phoenix, diverted to El Paso due to damage sustained by weather in flight. We commend the great work of our pilots, along with our flight attendants, who safely landed the Airbus A319 at 8:03 p.m. MDT,” the company said. “The aircraft is currently being evaluated by our maintenance team. We never want to disrupt our customers’ travel plans and we are sorry for the trouble this caused.”
Passengers on the flight were put on a 11:46 p.m. flight to Phoenix, CBS News reported.
Whoa!!! This American Airlines flight from San Antonio to Los Angeles encountered an intense thunderstorm last night while in West Texas. It had to make an emergency landing in El Paso. I can see why. The nose of the plane should not look like that. pic.twitter.com/FdupbF6Av6
— Damon Lane (@KOCOdamonlane) June 4, 2018
PHOTO
American Airlines #AA1897 from San Antonio suffered significant damage to its windshields and nose while flying through severe weather enroute to Phoenix. Flight was diverted to El Paso. Pilot indicated they had ‘virtually no visibility’.?KTVK/Scott Cruse pic.twitter.com/oql5eJjjon
— Tom Podolec (@TomPodolec) June 4, 2018
”We could hear the hail hitting the plane. I don’t know if it was coming head-on or sideways, but we could hear it and we did see lightning,” passenger Jesus Esparza told local San Antonio station KENS 5. “The turbulence was very bad… at one point it felt like we fell pretty hard, kind of like a rollercoaster.”
“It was by far one of the most terrifying experiences I’ve ever been through,” he added.
Here’s another look at #AA1897 from #SAT ➡️ #PHX — diverted to #EPIA due to an inflight emergency. No official confirmation, but emergency source says plane windshield may have cracked- leaving pilot to blind land. pic.twitter.com/EpTE3NrvKX
— andra litton (@tornandra) June 4, 2018
plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this caused,” a statement released by AA said. The aircraft’s radome and cockpit windscreens were damaged. There were no reports of injuries in spite of the fact that one passenger tweeted: “…Things were flying. Passengers throwing up. Scariest flight of my life…” The ATC communications included this from the pilot of AA 1897, “The hail has beat up our forward windshields pretty badly for American Airlines 1897. At this time, we don’t have a whole lot of forward visibility.”
